Broken Mirrors
by twenty3
Summary: A case brings someone back into Nick's life from fourteen years ago, but because of what he did to her he can't bring himself to even see her. A part of his past is brought back to light, and what he chooses to do to right a wrong will alter his future.
1. Dosed

Disclaimer: Don't own anything or anyone.

Rating for language and content in future chapters. Spoilers through season 11.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!

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><p>It wasn't one of those days were something ends up going wrong and you think back that it started off just like any other day. This wasn't the case for Nick Stokes. The day had started with him waking up hours before his alarm was set to go off to get him up for work with a sharp, stinging headache that didn't make any sense for him to have. It was so bad that he was unable to fall back asleep and by the time he dragged himself in to work, he was even more exhausted then he had been when he had left earlier that morning. After taking a hand full of aspirin, the pain finally started to subside a little but was instead replaced with a dull ache in his chest. His heart was beating at an irregular pace and he was actually starting to get worried that he was really sick when Catherine bounded into the break room with assignments, followed by Greg and Sara.<p>

"Nicky," she said cheerfully, handing him a slip. "419 out in Henderson. Brass is on his way out there, he suggested to me that you not make him wait longer than you have to. I think he's cranky."

Nick smiled slightly as he took the slip from Catherine. He was already feeling better; must have just been over tired and thinking about it too much he thought to himself. "I'll get right out there. Am I on my own?"

Catherine nodded. "Busy night. Greg, you have a dead stripper found in a back alley and Sara you're with me on a double murder at Caesar's Palace. Off we go."

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><p>Nick couldn't remember exactly what had happened in between when he left the lab and to the point he was at right now, sitting in his car, waiting for Greg to answer his cell phone. All he knew for sure was that the weird feeling he had had before was now back and in full swing and he felt like he was going to pass out at any minute. He took several deep breaths to try and calm himself down.<p>

"Sanders."

"Greg," Nick said quickly. "Did you go to your scene yet?"

"No," Greg replied. "I'm just about to leave. I had to wrap up my last case with the ADA. I'm heading over now. Why? What's up?"

Nick sighed heavily. "I need you to do me a favor, but you can't ask why and you can't say anything to anyone. I just need you to do it, okay?"

"Do you need me to help you bury a body?" Greg asked jokingly. "Because I'll only do it if it's Hodges."

Nick ignored him. "I need you to switch cases with me. I can't tell you why, please don't ask. Just come to my scene and I'll go to yours and we'll just switch, okay?"

With barely any hesitation, Greg responded "Yeah, no problem. You're okay and everything though, right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he lied. They exchanged the addresses of the scenes and then Nick took off for the alley back on the strip, much to Brass' utter amazement.

Not long after he had seen Nick drive off, Brass saw Greg pull up and hop out of his car, kit in hand. The younger CSI strode up to the police captain with a slightly worried expression on his face, but he made it melt away with a smile when he greeted Brass.

"Hey," he said casually. "What do we have here?"

Brass cocked an eyebrow. "Where's Nick?"

"There was a mix up," Greg offered. "Needed him back at the lab. Don't worry, I'm capable of handling this."

As Brass was greeting Greg, Nick arrived at the alley back on the strip. He still had his gloves on from the other scene and didn't realize it until he was about to get out of his car. He ripped them off and threw them on the floor of the passenger's side. He grabbed his spare kit of the the trunk, seeing as he left his other back in Henderson, and headed over to where Vartann was standing by the police tape.

"I was expecting Sanders," Vartann said with a quizzical look. Nick silently shook his head. His brain was going a million miles a minute and couldn't formulate a coherent response. "Well, nothing really mysterious here. Dead girl was found by some tourists. Found a bloody knife next to the body, and a separate blood pool to suggest the killer was injured. Called all the hospitals, one stab victim came in to Desert Palm around the confirmed TOD of nine tonight. Case almost solved itself."

"You pretty much did everything for me," Nick said, needing to offer a response to Vartann's helpfulness. "Thanks, it's a huge help. You have no idea."

Nick didn't remember processing the scene, bagging any evidence or driving back to the lab. He didn't remember anything from the conversation with Vartann up until now, sitting in his office with his head in his hands. He felt like he was going to pass out at any minute, and wished he had when Greg popped his head through the door.

"Hey man," he said softly. "I know you told me not to ask, but are you sure you're alright?"

Before Nick had a chance to respond, they both heard Catherine bark from behind Greg in the hallway, "Nick, Greg, in my office. Now."

The two men walked down the hall to their supervisor's office like kids going to the principals in middle school. They were both a little confused, but most of all worried. Nick felt very dizzy, so he sat down across from Catherine and Greg followed his lead. They sat there silently, waiting for Catherine to begin.

"Since when do we trade cases?" she asked suddenly.

Nick frowned. "Since when do you get so pissed off over nothing?"

She knew he was right; she was a little too mad over a small thing. She had had a long week, was frustrated for a lot of reasons, and finding out about this little switch sent her over the edge for whatever reason.

"When I'm not informed of it and when it just happens for the hell of it." Nick looked over at Greg, to which Catherine continued. "Don't worry, he didn't rat you out, even though he should have. Brass and David both asked me what was wrong with you, not to mention I saw Greg trying to sneak in your kit that you left at your scene. So what is it Nicky? Did you want the easier case? Didn't feel like working hard tonight?"

Nick shook his head. "No," he said softly. "It was the uh...the victim."

Catherine was a little taken back by that. She knew that if Nick had known the victim, he would have just called her and removed himself correctly. But he didn't. He went behind her back and just switched, so it was more complicated and she wanted to know exactly why he had done what he had. He should have gone to her first, but he didn't. Just like he hadn't with Ray in LA, which she was still holding against him.

"So what, did you get in a fight with him in a bar? Or did you have a one night stand with his girlfriend?" she asked.

Nick knew just how pissed she was by her harsh tone and accusations, and that told him it had a lot more to do with than just him switching cases with Greg. "Neither," he said. "Well, not really either. It's more complicated than that."

"So you slept with his girlfriend multiple times then?" she added, emphasizing how tired and annoyed she was at the moment.

"Please Catherine," Nick said calmly. "Let it go. I'm sorry, I should have called you but I didn't want to get in to why and I didn't want to have to lie. I made Greg switch with me, he was just doing me a favor. It's not his fault. But please, just yell at me or whatever, but let it go."

Catherine shook her head. "I can't. I keep letting things go with you, and you keep doing stupid things. Tell me what this is about Nick."

Nick's eyes had been glued to the floor for the last few minutes, but now he looked up and made eye contact with Catherine. "I don't want to ta-"

"I know you don't want to talk about it, but you're going to. You're not leaving here until you tell me what the hell is going on."

Nick ran his hands back and forth through his dark hair and sighed heavily. "Jeff Baker, the victim, I know him. Kind of. I've never met him before or anything, but I know him. So I can't work the case."

Catherine rolled her eyes at his broad excuse. "How do you know him?"

"We have a...uh, a mutual friend."

"You slept with his girlfriend," Catherine assumed again. "Or wife maybe?"

Nick shook his head. "She wasn't his girlfriend when I slept with her. She was my girlfriend."

Catherine was a little shocked by this. "So he's your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend? You couldn't have just told me that? It's gotta be more complicated than that. Spill. Everything. Now."

Nick knew he wasn't going to get away without telling her the whole story, so being left with no choice, he began. "Her name is Sam Williams. We met in college, the very first weekend I think. I fell in love with her right away. We dated all through college and moved into an apartment together after school in Dallas, where she's from." He stopped abruptly.

"And what happened?" Catherine asked.

Nick sighed again. "Everything was great. We had been living together for four years, and she got pregnant when we were twenty-six. We were both so happy about it. We weren't married, but were planning on doing so eventually, especially after she got pregnant. We didn't tell our families though because we knew they'd be pissed because we weren't married. But, uh, we never ended up having to tell them." Nick dropped his eyes to the floor and his voice level fell. "Sam had a miscarriage a few weeks later."

"Nicky," Catherine said softly, tears showing in her eyes. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, immediately regretting the way she had just treated him.

"We went to the doctor to try and figure out what happened. They ran all kinds of tests and sent us the results in the mail. Sam was still recovering so she was asleep when I got the letter. It said that she had hormonal problems or something, and that's what caused it and gave us a bunch of papers on what we could do about it. She already blamed herself enough for what happened, and it wasn't her fault. She didn't do it on purpose, obviously, so I lied to her. I told her the tests came back and said it happened because I smoked. I don't remember exactly what I said, but she believed me. I knew she wouldn't blame me, and I didn't want her blaming herself, so I lied."

"She found out, didn't she," Greg said, speaking for the first time since they had gotten in to the room.

Nick nodded. "She found the letter and all the papers about it. She was more upset that I had lied to her than the results. She thought I lied because I blamed her, but I didn't. I don't. Anyway, everything went downhill from there. We couldn't stop fighting and she couldn't be around me anymore because it just reminded her that I had lied about what had happened. She left one night to go stay at a friend's, and I left too. But I came here and didn't go back. I haven't seen or spoken to her since."

Catherine's jaw dropped. "You just left?" Nick nodded silently. "And you haven't talked to her in, what, ten years?"

"Fourteen," Nick corrected her. "Sam still talks to my sister Jess all the time, they were really close. That's how I knew who Jeff Baker was. They met a few years ago and moved to Riverside, but I guess they live in Vegas now. I don't know. All I know is I can't work the case because I'd eventually have to talk to her and I can't. I'm sorry Catherine."

He stood to leave, but Catherine stopped him. "I'm sorry for what I said Nicky," she said quietly. "I'm just frustrated and...I shouldn't have taken it out on you. But you could have told me this, you can tell me anything. I know you didn't want to talk about it, but sometimes it helps."

Nick smiled weakly. "Yeah, I know." He turned and left Catherine's office, leaving her and Greg sitting there in stunned silence. Halfway back to his office, he got the feeling he was being followed, but didn't turn around. His suspicions were confirmed when he got into his office and sat down at his desk when Greg took one step through the door, then stopped.

"We can kick the case to days if you want," the younger CSI said gently. "If you don't want me to end up talking to her or anything."

Nick turned and look at Greg. "I asked you to switch with me because I knew eventually, I would have had to go talk to her and I can't do that. She'd probably kill me. But if someone has to go talk to her, I want it to be you. Catherine and Sara would be too subjective and try to get her to talk to me or something, try to fix what happened. It can't be fixed, and I know you won't mess with it. If anyone has to talk to her, I want it to be you."

Greg nodded slightly. "Okay, I'll get back to work then." He left without another word, knowing Nick had said everything he had wanted to say and didn't want to talk about it anymore than he had already been forced to. He knew Nick wanted to be by himself, so he left him alone in his office, closing the door behind him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Nick felt his chest tighten. Explaining what had happened to Catherine was emotionally tolling; he had never told anyone in Vegas about Sam. Not even Warrick knew. It was a part of his life that he had completely messed up and had left in his past, back in Texas. He tried to tell himself that it had nothing to do with what and who he was now, but he knew that wasn't true. It had been fourteen years since he had seen Sam, and now she was closer to him than she had been since that night she had left. But he couldn't see her; it wasn't fair to either one of them.

Still, somehow, Nick knew that as complicated as things had been in Texas, they were only going to get worse.

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><p>Next chapter will be up soon, thanks for reading the beginning. =)<p>

The part with the miscarriage is based on something that happened to my aunt with the letter and reasons for why it happened and is the only information I used for this part. Sorry if it's inaccurate or whatnot, no research, just based on personal experience.


	2. You Might Have Noticed

Greg entered the interrogation room and immediately felt his heart sink. Sam Williams was sitting at the table, crumpled tissue in hand. When he walked in, she looked up and smiled sadly at him. He returned the greeting and sat down across from her. Despite her tired, puffy eyes and overall weak and sad demeanor, Greg could confidently say that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders in loose curls and her eyes were dark brown, identical to Nick's. She wasn't wearing make-up, probably because she didn't need to.

Greg swallowed hard before speaking. "Hi, Miss Williams, my name is Greg Sanders, I'm with the crime lab. I'm sorry for your loss."

She smiled sadly again. "Please, call me Sam." Her Texan accent was so slight that Greg wouldn't have even noticed it if he hadn't been looking for it, but of course he had been.

Greg smiled warmly. "Sam," he said, "I need to take your finger prints and ask you a few questions about Jeff Baker."

"Okay," she said, nodding slightly. As Greg was taking her fingerprints, she asked "The police said he was shot in his own home...when exactly did he die?"

"Early Saturday morning, around one am." Sam nodded slightly and began wiping her hands with the cloth Greg gave her after he finished taking her prints. "I understand you were dating Jeff."

"I used to," Sam answered. "We broke up about a month ago."

"Were you living with him up to that point?"

"Yes, in his house in Henderson. He bought it after he got a promotion and was transferred here. We lived there for about a year and then I ended it a month ago. We wanted different things, it wasn't working anymore."

Greg nodded. "Do you still live in Vegas?"

"Yes, I have an apartment by myself now. I love my new job at the school I'm at, I couldn't leave the kids and go back home."

"When's the last time you spoke to Jeff?"

Sam shook her head. "I don't know exactly. Maybe a week after we broke up? He was upset and wanted to try and work things out, but I knew it was over. He tried for a few days to fix things, but finally gave up and respected my wishes to just move on. He was going to move back to Riverside as soon as he could get a place."

"Do you have any idea who would want to hurt him?"

"He fought with his old business partner a lot, but I don't know if he would kill Jeff. They were partners back in Texas, then Jeff got the job offer in Riverside and his partner was pissed when he left. Their investments were weak and he didn't really have any choice."

"Do you have this business partner's information?" Greg asked.

Sam shrugged. "All I really know is that his name's Ray Lyon. He still lives in Dallas, I'm not sure what he's doing now but last Jeff said he was working for an accounting firm. They spoke every once in a while, mostly arguing over who owes who what. I stayed out of it."

Greg smiled sympathetically. "Well, we're just going to use your prints to exclude you. We checked out your alibi and were able to confirm that you were in Reno the night Jeff was killed."

"Bachelorette party," she said with another sad smile. "I'm surprised anyone remembered it, although I guess they owed me that much being the designated driver."

Greg offered a small laugh. "We'll contact you if we have any further questions." He packed up his kit and was about to stand to leave when Sam spoke again.

"You work with him, don't you," she stated more than asked.

Greg felt every muscle in his body freeze. "I don't understand who you mean," he lied, knowing full well who she meant.

"I can tell," she said, ignoring his fake confusion. "The way you looked at me when you came in, how nice you're being to me. When I heard what happened, part of me wanted him to be on this case because I knew he would figure out what happened to Jeff. But most of me never wants to see him again."

Greg didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. He just sat there lamely, looking at her and listening to her speak. Her eyes were looking down at her hands, which were twisting the tissue into knots. Tears were slowly falling from her eyes, but she didn't bother to wipe them away.

"Is he okay?" she asked, suddenly looking up and meeting Greg's eyes. He shook his head slightly and opened his mouth to play dumb, but she stopped him. "I know him. I know he told you, he wouldn't have blind sided you. I don't know what he told you, but I know you know something, I can tell you know enough. I've heard about the things that have happened to him here, and I just want to know if he's okay."

Greg nodded slowly. "Yeah, he's okay."

Sam smiled weakly and nodded once. "Good." She stood and walked to the door, then paused and turned back around to once again look at a stunned Greg Sanders. "Don't tell him that I asked about him. You're probably going to anyway, but I guess it's worth a shot to ask you not to."

Greg shook his head. "I won't say anything. It doesn't seem like it will do any good telling him anyway."

"Thank you," Sam said softly, then turned and left.

Greg sat in his chair for a few minutes before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I know you're back there." After a few seconds, Nick reluctantly came around from the observation room adjacent to the interrogation room. He entered with his head hung and sat down across from Greg heavily. "You shouldn't have done that," the younger man said gently.

"There's a lot of things I shouldn't have done," Nick replied. "I shouldn't have lied to her. I shouldn't have just up and left my entire life behind. I shouldn't have let the best thing that has ever happened to me get away, but I did. I did all of those things, and I can't change any of it."

"No," Greg responded simply, "you can't." With that he gathered his things and left the room, once again leaving Nick by himself.

Too much had happened in the last few days. He didn't know how to deal with any of it. He had just been closer to Sam than he ever had been in the last fourteen years, and hadn't even gotten to say one word to her. Truth is, he had no idea what he would even say if he were given the chance to do so. He knew there was nothing he could say or do to change what had happened. That was why he had left. Nothing was going to make things okay again, and neither one of them could live with that fact. Not with each other there as daily reminders of what they had been through. So Nick sat there in the interrogation room, by himself, repeating in his mind the same things he had told himself every day for the last fourteen years in an attempt to convince himself that he had made the right decision to leave that night.

Of course he knew it was a losing battle, but he also knew it was the only thing he had left of her.

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><p>"Sam," Greg said, greeting her with a smile. "Thank you for coming down. I just need you to sign this form to release Jeff's personal effects to his family. You were still listed as his emergency contact and primary proxy for these circumstances."<p>

Sam quickly signed the forms and smiled back at Greg. "Not a problem, I'm glad you caught the guy who did this to Jeff."

Greg nodded slightly. "You were a big help with that. Jeff's business partner led us to another guy they had been involved with who went to Jeff for a loan. When he refused, the guy snapped. I'm sorry this happened."

"Not your fault," Sam replied with a small shrug.

"Not yours either," Greg responded, though he was not quite sure why he had said that. He could tell Sam was more anxious and even nervous as compared to when he had first met her the other day, and he had a clue as to why. "He's not here," he said, playing the same no-name game she had started at their first encounter.

Sam smiled and looked down at the floor sheepishly. "Sorry, can't help but be antsy. I always hated police stations, especially when he worked at one back in Dallas." She shook her head, tossing her brown curls back and forth. "This is the most I've talked about him in fourteen years, and I don't even know you," she said with a small laugh.

"Sorry," he mumbled lamely. "You're all set, we've got everything we need taken care of. Have a good day," he said cheerfully.

"Thanks Greg, you too," she said genuinely, but made no short order of getting out of that police station.

Greg sighed and headed on his own way out, back to the lab to wrap up the case so he could go home and get some rest. On the drive back, he couldn't help but think about Nick and how difficult this must be for him. Sam was obviously a beautiful woman, and even only knowing her briefly as it pertained to this case, Greg could see she was a kind and sweet person. He wished there was something he could do, but of course knew it wasn't his place and that there wasn't anything to be done.

After finishing all the paper work, Greg happily closed up shop and headed for the locker room. He stopped immediately upon entering and seeing Nick sitting on the bench in front of his closed locker, eyes closed and head in his hands. He felt as though he was intruding and was just about to turn to leave when Nick spoke.

"Feel like getting a drink?" he asked quietly.

Greg could easily see that Nick's eyes were closed, and he hadn't though he had made that much noise when he walked into the room for Nick to have even known anyone had walked in, never mind enough commotion to properly identify himself.

"How did you know it was me?" Greg asked out of pure intellectual curiosity.

Nick shrugged as he dropped his hands to his lap and looked up at Greg. "Catherine would have immediately started crying and came over and hugged me. Sara would have sighed to make her presence known, then came over and hugged me. Ray would have told me some old story of when he was younger that somehow relates to this. Then came over and hugged me. And Hodges would have told me what an idiot I am and asked for Sam's number, then just left. You're the only one who wouldn't have said anything and would have tried to escape silently."

Greg shook his head slightly and started to apologize, but Nick stopped him. "I'm glad it was you and not any of them."

Greg smiled slightly. "Because you know that despite how tired I am, I'll take you up on that drink offer and even be stupid enough to say it's on me tonight."

Nick laughed softly. "Yeah, that was my plan."

"Come on," Greg said, motioning to the door with his head. "Let's go."

Nick got up and followed Greg out to his car in the parking garage. They rode in silence to the bar the team frequented because it was off strip and didn't attract too many tourists. It was fairly early on a week night, so there weren't many people there other than the usual bar flies and the two CSIs. They sat down at the end of the bar and were both halfway through their second beer before Nick finally broke the ongoing silence.

"Sorry I spied on your interrogation," he said, staring down at his half empty bottle of beer.

Greg shrugged as he took another sip. "Wasn't much of an interrogation, we already knew she didn't have anything to do with it. I knew you were there the whole time."

"You play dumb pretty well," Nick joked.

Greg laughed. "She didn't buy it."

Nick shook his head. "She never does."

Greg looked over at his friend with empathetic eyes, but Nick was still looking down. The younger man knew that the only reason they were here right now was because Greg hadn't prodded or tried to force Nick to talk about what had happened; Nick had just done it on his own. He knew Nick wanted to talk about it, but he also knew he wasn't going to sit there and spill whatever was on his mind without a little push. Greg knew he couldn't push too hard or Nick would probably knock him out, but he figured it was worth the risk to try and help his friend.

"Did you know she was in Vegas?" Greg asked, staying on subject but not asking about anything that had happened in their past.

"Not until I got to the scene and saw that Jeff Baker was the victim. Sam and my sister talk all the time and Jess always tells me whatever she's up to. Last she told me, they were living in Riverside. Jess either didn't know they moved to Vegas or didn't want to tell me. Either way, as soon as I saw it was him I knew she was here too."

Greg nodded slightly. "Why do you think she asked me if you were okay?"

Nick took a long drink from his beer, almost finishing it before looking over at Greg and shrugging. "Jess must have told her about how I got kidnapped and shot and everything. She was probably hoping you'd tell her I was in straight jacket in a psych ward. I deserve worse."

"She seemed relieved that you were okay," Greg replied. They were quiet again for a few minutes before Greg suddenly asked, "Why did you just leave without saying anything? That just doesn't seem like you."

When Nick didn't reply, Greg figured he had overstepped the line on that one. He had just been too curious not to ask and felt like he was on a roll with Nick and could get away with it. As he watched Nick finish his beer and sit back in his chair, he assumed he had been wrong. He was just about to apologize for bringing it up when Nick finally responded.

"In all of the eight years we were together, we fought maybe a grand total of three times those entire eight years. And they were stupid fights, all of them were when we were still in college about stupid shit I can't even remember. But after her miscarriage and especially after she found out I had lied to her, we fought constantly. We couldn't be around each other for longer than ten minutes without one of us starting a fight. It was awful," he finished softly.

Nick's eyes were once again averted elsewhere, but Greg could still see the emotion in them. "Couples fight, especially after going through something like that," he offered.

Nick shook his head. "We never really even talked about it. She was such a mess, and I didn't know what to do. We never told our families anything, so we never even told them about the miscarriage either. Jess doesn't even know. The first week, while she was recovering and we were taking the tests and everything, we just cried a lot and stayed in bed. We never talked about it or dealt with it in a healthy way, and when we started fighting so much it made everything worse."

He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "We were making each other miserable on purpose. She hated me for lying, it made her feel like she couldn't trust anything I had ever said or did. It erased our eight year relationship and restarted it on the basis that I had lied to her about the cause of her miscarriage. Not a good combination. I left because I didn't have any other choice. She couldn't stand to even look at me, never mind live with me anymore. I just took the easy way out and got it over with without saying anything before we fought more and ended up making things worse than they already were. I know it was a fucked up thing to do, but I didn't see any other choices."

Greg smiled sadly at his friend. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Get drunk with you," Nick answered with a small laugh. "Then wake up tomorrow and hope it was all a dream. When I realize it wasn't, I'll probably end up doing something stupid like trying to see her or even talk to her. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Actually, I'll probably jump off it rather than cross it."

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><p>Thanks for reading, next chapter is already in the works and should be up soon!<p> 


	3. Hairline Fracture

This is a flashback scene of the last time Nick and Sam saw each other fourteen years ago to set up for further chapters. Hope you enjoy!

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><p><em>Nick quickly wiped the drop of water off the back of his neck as it was streaming down to the neckline of his shirt, effectively tickling him as it picked up speed. His hair was still wet from the shower he had just taken and knew there would be more droplets of water to fight off soon enough. He threw his towel on the hook on the back of his bedroom door and gave up on his search for socks by exiting the room and walking down the hall into the kitchen. His favorite pair of jeans were really starting to show signs of wear and tear, as was his blue t-shirt that he was conveniently wearing at the same time. He smiled at the thought of Sam once again yelling at him for wearing them both at the same time, just to annoy her. He missed those fake little fights they had; they had been replaced by real and heart wrenching fights ever since they had lost the baby.<em>

_As he turned and opened the fridge to see what they had to drink, he saw out of the corner of his eye Sam standing in the middle of the living room with her back to him, her head slightly bent forward as she was reading something. Her body was tense and completely still. He looked down at the coffee table in front of her and upon doing so realized the reason for her rigid demeanor. He saw the familiar file of papers and forms and knew exactly what she had found, and this realization made his heart sink and his stomach jump up into his throat at the same time._

_Nick silently walked into the living room, stopping a few feet away from his girlfriend of eight years. His brain was screaming at him to run out of the apartment before another fight started, but his feet were rooted to the spot. His heart was beating so fast he thought it was going to beat out of his chest, and years later he still swore that the sound of it was what gave up his presence in the room to Sam, making her turn around to face him._

_"You lied?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer. Her voice was barely above a whisper, making it difficult for Nick to hear her._

_He felt his hands start to shake at his sides. "What are you talking about?" he tried, playing dumb seemingly his only defense._

_"You lied," she said as a statement this time. "You lied to me. Of all the things that you could do at a time like this, you lied to me about what caused it. You took advantage of me being so upset and sick over what happened, that you lied to me. How could you Nick?"_

_Nick tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wasn't budging. "I didn't want you to blame yourself."_

_"Why would I do that?" she asked. "Do you blame me?"_

_"No honey, of course not," he said, taking a few steps towards her._

_She backed away, keeping him at a distance. "Why would you lie about something like this? I never thought you would lie to me about anything, especially not something like this, this is our life."_

_"I know," Nick said calmly. "I lied to protect you because you were so upset. I didn't want you to think it was your fault, and I knew you wouldn't blame me if I told you the results had said it was because of something wrong with me. I was still so upset over what happened and I didn't know what to do, I'm sorry. I was just trying to protect you."_

_"By lying," Sam said, her voice level rising with each word. "You lied to me about the reason why we lost our child. Do you even care that we lost it? Were you happy about it?"_

_Nick shook his head. "Will you listen to yourself? You think I was happy about it? Jesus Sam, of course I wasn't! I was heart broken, I still am. The only thing I want is to have a family with you, and we had it taken away from us. I didn't want that to happen any more than you did."_

_"How can I believe you? How can I believe anything about you anymore? If you'd lie about this, who knows what else you've lied about."_

_"I haven't lied about anything else, I swear."_

_Tears started falling from her tired eyes. "Your word doesn't really mean much now Nick. You have no idea how I feel right now, knowing that you lied to me about this. This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to me, to us, and now I have to relive it and try to get over it all over again because you lied. You looked me straight in the eyes and you lied to me."_

_"What would you have done?" Nick asked. "If you found out that it was my fault, what would you say to me?"_

_Sam shook her head. "I wasn't the one who had a choice to lie, you were, and you lied. I wouldn't have lied to you, especially not about this. And if for some reason I did, I would have made damn sure that you would have never found out the truth to avoid causing even more problems in our lives. Why would you do this?"_

_Nick was at a loss for words. He knew lying to Sam about the results of the test was a bad idea and would crush her if she ever found out, but now, standing there and looking at her, he saw how much he had underestimated the consequences of his actions. She was incredibly pale and looked so weak that Nick was surprised she was even standing. The miscarriage had taken physical and emotional tolls on her, and now they were as apparent as ever. He thought that she would understand that he had lied to protect her. He expected her to be pissed at him, but he could tell this was different from what he had been expecting. She looked completely defeated, and if was because of him._

_"How am I supposed to get through this knowing I can't trust you? You just made everything so much worse." Her anger was displaced by overwhelming sadness at the realization of what her boyfriend had done. She had never felt so betrayed or lost in her whole life._

_"What do you want me to do?" Nick asked, feeling utterly helpless himself._

_"Do you really think it's that easy? That I can just command you to do something and make this magically all okay again? We've been fighting for two weeks straight over the dumbest things. We can't stand to be around each other. Why?" she asked._

_Nick sighed heavily. "Because something awful happened to us, and we have no idea how to deal with it. We're both angry, and sad, and only have each other to take it out on. There's not much else we can do about it."_

_"We can handle it like adults," Sam argued. We should be able to depend on each other to get through this, but apparently we can't do that. Apparently that's not enough."_

_"No, it's not enough. Talking about it and telling each other it's all going to be okay isn't good enough, it's not going to change what happened."_

_"Neither is lying about it!" Sam yelled, throwing the papers across the room. "Nothing can change what happened. How are we supposed to handle this the right way if one of us lied to the other about the major part of it? Now every single time I look at you, I'm going to be reminded of the fact that you lied to me about why we lost our unborn child. How you thought trying to protect me from the truth was a better idea than helping me get through the truth."_

_Nick felt a mix of emotions flooding his mind and he couldn't make sense of them. "These fights are all a result of the fact that you choose to focus on the negative aspects and totally ignore the positives."_

_"Tell me Nick, what exactly are the positives of having a miscarriage? I have no idea what these could be; enlighten me please."_

_'She was definitely right on that one,' he thought to himself, but still had to defend his point. "I don't mean about this specifically, but everything in general. All of our fights-"_

_"Are my fault?" she finished, cutting him off. "Are you really going to try and blame it all on me? So it's my fault that you've been totally detached and distant, spending more time while you're actually at home outside smoking then anywhere near me? I guess it's also my fault when you say completely idiotic and insensitive things just to piss me off because you're scared and numb so you want to fight in order to feel something other than pain."_

_He hated it when she could peg exactly how he was feeling and the reasons for his behavior that well, but he knew that's just the result of spending eight years with another person. Their fights had been escalating, and he didn't know if things were ever going to get better or just completely blow up._

_"So it's all my fault and you're completely innocent in this?" Nick accused._

_Sam shook her head. "I didn't say that. You're the one who tried to blame this all on me."_

_"And you're the one who keeps pointing out every little thing I do wrong. If I'm so awful, then what are you even doing with me in the first place?"_

_Sam scoffed. "Don't play the pity game Nick, grow up. You're acting completely insane, I feel like I don't even know you anymore. You're a completely different guy."_

_"Yeah, well, maybe you never really knew me at all," Nick retorted._

_Tears were now steadily streaming down Sam's pale cheeks. "I can't do this anymore Nick, this isn't us. We can't function, we can't even talk civilly to one another."_

_"So what, it's over? Just like that?"_

_Sam threw her hands in the air in anguish. "You'd love that wouldn't you? Get rid of the problem altogether, be freed of this insanity."_

_"Why are you doing this?" Nick demanded, involuntarily clenching his fists._

_"Because you fucking lied to me!"_

_It was official. Nick knew this had gone beyond anything he had ever done wrong in his entire life. He was now fully and completely aware of the irreparable damage that had been caused on his behalf with the utterance of that word from Sam. In the eight years that he had known her, she had sworn maybe a dozen times, but the worse she ever said was 'damn' or 'hell.' She hated cursing and never, ever swore, especially not at Nick. Hearing her say what she had said in the way that she had said it highlighted the severity of the situation better than anything else ever could. Before Nick realized what was going on, Sam had quickly moved over to the door, grabbed her keys and opened the door preparing to exit._

_"Where are you going?" Nick asked, his voice broken and weak._

_Sam looked down at the floor for a long moment before turning slightly and looking up at Nick. "I'm going to stay with Julie for a few days. I can't be around here, I can't be around you."_

_Nick swallowed hard. "Why?" was the only thing he could muster._

_The tears were falling harder from her eyes than they had since she had first found out about the miscarriage. She looked Nick dead in the eyes and said the following; but little did she know, this would be the last time she would look at him and also the last time she would speak to him for fourteen long, hard years._

_With tears falling from her eyes, Sam replied, "Because I don't love you anymore."_

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><p>Thanks for reading, next chapter will be up as soon as possible!<em><br>_


	4. Six Feet Under The Stars

Greg had sat silently and listened to Nick tell him the story of the last time he had seen Sam. It was heart wrenching, especially hearing it straight from Nick and seeing the look on his face that simply recalling the event caused. Greg had stopped drinking after two beers and started one just having waters, but Nick kept having beers until he was drunk. He was nowhere near the drunkest Greg had ever seen him, but he was at the point where he couldn't stop talking about what had happened because he was angry and he was sad and he couldn't keep it to himself anymore. He knew he could trust Greg and the alcohol was making him care less and less about what he shared with the younger man. None of it was going to make a difference anyway; he figured he might as well entertain Greg with a story while he sat there watching him slowly try to drink away a fourteen year old heart ache.

"You still love her, don't you?" Greg asked after a prolonged silence following Nick's conclusion to his recount of that night fourteen years ago.

Nick shook his head and finished off his ninth beer. "It doesn't matter," he replied simply.

"Of course it does," Greg argued. "It makes all the difference. It's the governing reason for what you're going to do next. If you didn't love her anymore, you wouldn't try to talk to her or see her ever again, you'd just let it go and carry on because you already moved on with your life. But you haven't, so that won't happen."

"That's not true," Nick said, shaking his head. "If I don't love her anymore, I'd still want to see her. I don't want things to end forever the way that they ended, I can't live with that. All of the times I had a near death experience, I always vowed to talk to her and tell her I'm sorry for what I did. Even if she didn't forgive me, I just want her to know that much."

Greg was impressed with how articulate Nick was after having had so much to drink, but he could relate to that. The reason for why you're drinking in the first place directly relates to the affect the alcohol is going to have on you; Nick was drinking to numb the pain, not to have fun or get out of control. None of those methods were working anyway.

"But you do still love her," Greg added. "You wouldn't have watched me interview her if you weren't. You wanted to know if she was still with Jeff. You wanted to see if there was any chance that you could reconcile with her because even the slightest chance is better than no chance at all, which is what you've been left with for the last fourteen years. You finally have a fighting chance, and you're going to take it because you never give up on anything, even when you should. But you shouldn't this time Nick. Don't give up."

Nick sighed heavily. "If I wanted a love life pep talk, I would have come out for drinks with Catherine."

"But you didn't, you came out for drinks with me. And you started talking to me about this, so you're going to listen to me because I'm your friend and I care what happens to you."

Nick felt chills run up his arms upon hearing those familiar words come from Greg. Three or so years ago, he himself had said similar words to Warrick when he caught him popping pills. Different situations, but the same meaning was conveyed nonetheless. Nick's words had gotten Warrick to put down his defensive front, and Greg's had effectively done the same to Nick.

"She'll kill me before I even get one word out," Nick said, only half kidding.

Greg smiled. "She's not going to kill you. I'd bet good money that she'd slap you, but she won't kill you."

"Not until after she tells me how awful I am, which I already know so really I'd be wasting my time as much as hers." He sighed again. "I don't know what to do. I want to see her, I want to talk to her, but I don't want to torture her anymore than I already have. She's moved on with her life, I should just let her be."

"You don't know that," Greg said, shaking his head. "You won't know anything for sure until you talk to her."

"She's obviously moved on if she had a serious relationship with a good guy and hasn't wanted to have anything to do with me in fourteen years," Nick countered.

Greg shook his head. "You left her, so obviously she took the hint and didn't want to contact you."

"She left first," Nick said quietly.

"You left a lot more than she did," Greg replied. "Just because she dated Jeff Baker doesn't mean she's over you. You've dated other women in that time frame and you're clearly not over her."

Nick scoffed. "The most serious relationship I've had in fourteen years was with a hooker, for whom I was accused of murdering."

"Be that as it may," Greg responded, "but I'm still right."

Nick looked down, shaking his head slowly. "How's that?" he asked.

"Because you still haven't tried to deny the fact that you're still in love with her," he pointed out. Before Nick could say anything, Greg continued. "You've argued with me and granted hypothetical situations in which you would still proceed with the same actions whether or not you were still in love with her, but never once did you just come out and say you didn't love her anymore, and that's because you still do. But you don't have to tell me. Go tell her, like you promised yourself so many times that you would. She deserves to hear it as much as you deserve to say it."

Nick looked up at his friend with sad, tired eyes that held a shimmer of amusement in them. "You should have been a lawyer," he mumbled mockingly.

Greg laughed. "That would have made both my parents a lot happier," he relfected. "But that has nothing to do with anything. You should be talking to her about all of this, not me."

Nick hung his head again. "I don't even know what I would say to her. All I can say is that I'm sorry, but that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. She doesn't want to hear that I'm sorry."

"Then what does she want to hear?" Greg asked.

"I don't know," Nick said with a shrug. "Whatever it is, she doesn't want to hear it from me. I can't see her, it wouldn't be fair. If she wanted to see me, she would have come to me. She knows I live in Vegas, she would know how to find me."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Greg said sarcastically. "Doing nothing seems like the better option. All you have to do is call her and see what happens, or go to her apartment and see what she says when you show up. The worst that could happen is you end up back here in the same position you're in now. You have nothing to lose, but not doing anything to change that seems like the safer choice, even though doing something will only benefit you."

Nick looked up and glared at Greg. "You have no idea how this feels," he said.

Greg nodded. "You're right, I don't. But I do know that if I felt like you did and there was a chance to change that feeling and make it go away, I'd take it no matter what."

* * *

><p>Sam really should have known better than to answer the door at one in the morning. After everything that had happened with Jeff, she should have just kept her doors locked up tight and gone to bed, ignoring whoever was at her door. Truth be told, deep down, she knew exactly who it was going to be before she even got up off the couch and walked over to stand in front of the door, hands shaking slightly at her sides. She wasn't cold despite the air conditioning in her apartment; she was still dressed in jeans and a red long sleeved t-shirt from earlier in the day. Her brown hair fell softly around her face and she was able to feel the prickle of tears before she even reached out to open the door. The door knob was cold, matching the air in the apartment but sharply contrasting that of the weather outside. It was dry and warm, as it always was in Las Vegas. The warm air rushed in and surrounded her as her breath caught in her throat, but it wasn't because of the sudden rush of warmth.<p>

Nick stood there stiffly was a blank expression on his face, but per usual, his eyes were speaking volumes. Sam looked into those dark brown pools for the first time in fourteen years and could tell exactly what he was thinking and feeling without him having to say anything, and she hated that. She hated that even after not seeing him for fourteen years, she could still read him like a book. That should have changed, along with everything else in her life that had been altered because of the man standing in front of her.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, her voice soft and broken.

Nick didn't have an answer, and he wasn't entirely sure he would have even been able to speak if he had had one in the first place. It took a few minutes, but he was finally able to reply with a weak, "I don't know."

"You shouldn't be here," she said.

Nick nodded. "I know."

"Then why are you here?" Sam asked, her heart wrenching with every word she had to say to him.

"I don't know," he repeated. "I knew you'd still be up, probably watching Seinfeld re-runs. I just had to see you and say..." he trailed off.

"Say what Nick? That you're sorry? I don't want to hear that you're sorry, I know you're sorry. But that doesn't change anything, it doesn't get us anywhere. I had really hoped you knew better than to come over here, but I guess I was wrong about you. Again."

She grabbed the door and tried to slam it shut, but her plan was ruined when Nick stuck his right hand in the door frame at the last second, effectively keeping the door open and breaking his hand at the same time. The heavy door was pinning his hand tightly, and for a split second Sam wanted to throw all of her weight against the door to totally crush his hand, but she didn't. She reluctantly pulled the door back open, watching as Nick drew his injured hand to his chest as it began to shake slightly.

"You can't break my hand and then just make me leave," he said with a small smile.

* * *

><p>Thanks again for reading, next chapter up soon!<p> 


	5. Broken Glass Syndrome

Sam reluctantly deserted her post in front of the door and retreated back into the apartment, leaving the door open. She wasn't making Nick leave, but she wasn't exactly inviting him in either. It was a tricky thing, deciding what to do when someone who you haven't seen in fourteen years after they shattered your heart shows up at your front door at one in the morning. She didn't want to talk to him, but at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to ignore the fact that he was here. To say that it was confusing and frustrating would be a complete understatement, leaving her with many options of what to do, but none that stood out as being the correct thing to do. Besides, knowing Nick, he wasn't going to quit without putting up a fight.

Nick hesitated for a second before stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind him. He immediately pegged his surroundings as being eerily similar to the apartment the pair had shared back in Dallas. In fact, their positions were reversed from that night they had seen each other last. Sam was standing over at the edge of the living room at the island that separated the living room from the kitchen, whereas Nick was standing in front of the door. Sam had her back to him and was leaning forward, bracing herself against the marble counter top of the island. Nick glanced over at the television, confirming his previous suspicions that Sam had been up watching Seinfeld re-runs as they had done countless times together.

"I took the apartment before I knew what it looked like inside," she said, still turned away from him but able to read his mind nonetheless. Nick smiled as he was still clutching his injured hand to his chest. He walked over to her, and as soon as he was close enough for her to be able to tell he was there, she started to moved away towards the kitchen.

"Sam," he said softly and reached out with his good hand, gently keeping her in place. "I'm sorry about Jeff."

She turned and faced him, shaking her head with tears in her eyes. "No you're not."

Nick frowned in confusion. "Of course I am. Do you really think I'm glad that he's dead just because you were dating him? Is your opinion of me really that low?" he asked.

"Lower," Sam said. "You have no idea what you did to me Nick, because you never cared what your actions were going to do to me. Did you think showing up now was going to make me magically forgive you?"

"I don't want you to forgive me," he replied.

"Then what do you want? Why are you here? And don't say you don't know. If you really don't know why you're here, then just leave. I should have never answered the door, I knew it was going to be you trying to fix things."

"Then why did you answer the door? And don't say you don't know because you do know why."

Sam clenched her fists in frustration. "Are you just here to piss me off? Because you're doing a great job."

Nick shook his head slowly. "I just wanted to see you."

"Why? So you could finally understand what you did to me? Is that what you want to hear, how miserable you made me?" When Nick didn't reply to stop her, Sam couldn't help but continue. "I came back later that night. I went to Julie's, told her what happened, and we talked for a few hours. Then I decided I had over reacted a little and needed to talk it out with you because we hadn't talked about what had happened or the fact that we fought so much, we just kept fighting. I went back that night to talk to you, but you weren't there. I fell asleep on the couch waiting for you to come home. When you didn't the next day or the day after that, I was so scared. Your family hadn't heard from you either...I had no idea what happened to you. I thought something awful had happened to you and I felt responsible. I was a wreck for a whole week, unable to eat or sleep until you finally called your family and told them you had moved to Vegas. I looked like a complete idiot because I had no idea my boyfriend had moved to Vegas; I thought you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Nick said, "but I wasn't your boyfriend anymore. You told me it was over, that you didn't love me anymore. I had no other choice but to leave. If I had stayed, you would have come back that night and we would have fought for the next week and I would have ended up leaving. I just saved us both from more pain and suffering.

"No," Sam said, shaking her head. "You saved yourself from more pain and suffering by running away. You caused me so much more by leaving and having me think you were dead or something than you staying could have ever done. You just left, completely, without saying anything to me. What made you think that that wasn't going to destroy me?"

"I knew I had no other choice," Nick repeated. "Because you said you didn't love me anymore."

"So you moved to Vegas?" Sam yelled.

Nick nodded. "Yes, because you were lying when you said it!" he yelled back, startling Sam.

"If I was lying, then why did you leave? If you thought I still loved you then why would you leave me and our life completely without so much as a post-it note saying you were okay?"

"Because that told me how much you hated me. You were still in love with me, but you hated me. You hated me enough to tell me that you didn't love me anymore because you knew exactly how much that was going to hurt. You knew exactly how to inflict as much pain as possible, and you did it. That's why I left. Because you lied to me in order to hurt me as much as you could because you hated me for lying to you."

Sam rolled her eyes. "So it's my fault you left? You're really going to blame this on me?"

Nick sighed heavily. "No, of course not. That's not what I mean. It's not your fault. I just, I want you to know that I didn't leave to hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you any more than I already had, that's why I left."

"To protect me?" Sam asked sarcastically, to which Nick nodded weakly. "It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter what you say now. You broke my heart and hurt me so bad that I still haven't even gotten over it Nick. You completely let me down and made me feel like I never even knew you at all, and that hurts just as much as knowing that you were able to just up and leave our life so easily."

"Do you really think it was that easy for me?" Nick asked. "It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do."

Sam scoffed. "You can't even imagine how hard it was for me."

"You're right, I can't," Nick agreed. "And I can't change what I did to you, that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I'm selfish and I wanted to see you even though I know that the last thing you want in the world is to see me. You can tell me how awful I already know that I am, but that's not going to change anything either."

"I don't want anything to change," Sam said. "I don't want my life to go back to how it was with you, that ship has sailed." With tears running down her face, she shook her head slowly as she said, "You're the worst thing that has ever happened to me Nick."

The ache in his chest hurt more than any broken bone ever could. "Well, then I guess losing the baby was the best thing that ever happened to you."

Sam's words had hurt, but Nick wasn't quite sure exactly what had made him say what he had just said to her. He knew it wasn't true. He knew it was the absolute worst thing he could have ever said to her. He didn't have much time at all to reflect on the reasons for why he had said such a heinous comment. He saw the anger and overwhelming sadness flood over Sam's face and into her emotional eyes and before he even had time to fully process and comprehend himself what he had just said, Sam took action, not with words but with force.

Without hesitation or thinking about it at all really, Sam felt her hand close around the handle of the large, heavy beer glass from her favorite pub in Dallas that was on the island to her right. She gripped it tightly and swing with all of her strength until the glass connect with the left side of Nick's head and face, quickly shattering on impact. She didn't remember ever hitting or seeing anything hit that hard before and knew as soon as she saw his eyes quickly fall closed that she had done some real damage. Nick was immediately knocked out cold, and he fell to the floor effortlessly. She dropped the still in tact handle of the glass in horror and looked down and the bleeding and unconscious man on her living room floor. He had a deep, wide cut that ran from the corner of his left eye all the way until it disappeared into his dark hair. The broken glass had also inflicted smaller wounds on his cheek and around his eye, and the fact that he was bleeding so much and unconscious told Sam that this was more than a serious situation.

She ran over to the phone and quickly dialed 911, ordering that there be an ambulance sent to her apartment as fast as humanly possible. She wasn't even sure if she hung up the phone as she simply dropped it on the floor and grabbed a dish towel from the kitchen, returned to the living room and put pressure on Nick's bleeding wound. In a matter of minutes, there was a loud knock at her door as someone yelled something, but all she could reply was that the door was open and to just come in and help Nick already. She was staring down at him, silently pleading for him to open his eyes and start laughing at her as if this was all a big practical joke on his part.

"Nick?" a deep male voice said from behind Sam as she was pulled away from Nick by the now arriving paramedics.

She turned and saw a police officer dressed in a neatly pressed suit with his gun drawn down by his side. "You know him?" she asked.

The man nodded. "I work with him. Nick Stokes. What the hell happened? We got a call about a domestic disturbance from neighbors, I was close and responded. The neighbors said they saw some guy pull up and throw a gun in his Jeep before coming in, thought maybe he went back out and was armed. What's going on?"

Sam felt her hands shaking violently as the paramedics wheeled Nick out of her apartment. "I'm Sam Williams, I dated Nick a long time ago back in Dallas. He came here, we got into a fight and I hit him with a glass and knocked him out. I didn't mean to hurt him, I just wanted him to shut up."

"Brass," a uniformed police officer said, addressing the man Sam was talking to.

"Yeah Mitch?" Brass replied. Mitch said something quietly to Brass before stepping back and waiting for Brass to continue his conversation with Sam. "Did Nick hit you?"

Sam felt her eyes widen. "No, God no. He didn't, I just hit him because of everything he was saying. It wasn't a physical fight until I hit him."

Brass cocked his head. "Nick's right hand was bruised, and this was a domestic disturbance call. I know you know I'm friends with the guy, but if he hurt you, you can tell me. I won't let him get away with it, I'll be the first to throw his ass in jail. Are you sure he didn't hurt you?"

Sam nodded, tears pouring from her eyes. "I swear. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than him being thrown in jail, but he didn't hit me. He would never do anything like that."

With no visible bruising on Sam's face, Brass had no reason not to believe her. "I didn't think he did," he agreed. "I know him all too well to know that's not Nick, but I just had to do my job and make sure. You're going to have to come down to the station with me and give your statement and wait for Nick to be released, give his statement and see if he's going to press charges, although I doubt he will."

All Sam could manage to do was nod weakly and follow the uniformed officer out to his cruiser, where she sat silently in the back all the way to the police station, where she sat stiffly as she gave the officer her statement of what had happened between her and Nick at her apartment. From Brass' office, he watched as she talked with Mitch in the waiting room, keeping his eyes on her even when Catherine and Greg practically ran up to him from the front door.

"What the hell happened?" Catherine asked, slightly out of breath.

Brass sighed. "Nick went to her apartment, they got in a fight, he said something and she hit him in the head with a glass. He's at the hospital now, probably with a good amount of stitches and a pretty severe concussion." Without another word, Catherine took off for the hospital to make sure Nick was going to be okay. Before following her suit, Greg followed Brass' gaze and landed his eyes on Sam.

"What did he say that made her mad enough to knock him out?" Greg asked.

Brass shrugged. "She didn't say."

Greg nodded slightly. "I could take a wild guess."


	6. Here We Stand

Once again, italics later in the chapter indicate a flashback. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

><p>"She could have killed you Nick."<p>

Nick finished scribbling his name on the discharge forms before turning to look at Catherine, who was standing in his path to the exit of the hospital. "I'm fine," he replied.

Catherine gently grabbed his shoulders and held him in place when he tried to walk around her, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "The doctors said if you had been standing a little closer to her and if she had swung just a little bit harder, it would have hit you just right in the temple and it would have killed you."

He could tell she was very upset by what had happened, but knew it was his own fault. "I'm not pressing charges on her. I went over there, I pissed her off and I got what I deserved. She wasn't trying to kill me, she was trying to make me shut up. I deserved to be hit, hell I would have deserved it if she had killed me. I wish she had."

Catherine dropped her hands back down to her side. "Why?" she asked quietly.

Nick looked down at the floor. "After everything I've done to her, adding last night to all of that..." he trailed off.

"What did you say to her?"

Nick felt tears start to build up in his tired eyes and his stomach twist into knots at the mere thought of what he had said. He knew Catherine would get it of him eventually, so he responded by saying "We were arguing and she said that I was the worst thing that ever happened to her. It's true, I agree, but I was so mad and frustrated and confused, so I said that losing the baby must have been the best thing that ever happened to her."

Catherine shook her head slowly. "How could you say that to her?"

Nick sighed heavily. "Because I'm a jackass, okay? What difference does it make why I said it? I said it, and I can't take it back. All I can do is go home, pass out, then wake up and try to put this whole thing behind me."

"You're not going to talk to her again?"

Nick scoffed. "I learned my lesson. She doesn't want to see me, she doesn't want to talk to me. She's done fine these fourteen years because I've been out of her life, I'm not going to try and force my way back in. I've done and said terrible things to her. The best thing I can do now is to leave her alone."

Catherine nodded slightly. "Okay, let's get you home."

They left the hospital and drove the whole way back to Nick's house in complete silence. The air conditioning in the car was on full blast because of how hot it was outside, and the faint sound of the radio playing music was only barely audible over the roar of the air. When they pulled into the driveway, Catherine looked over at Nick and saw that his head was back against the headrest with his eyes closed, but she knew he wasn't asleep. She cut the engine and sat back in her own seat, feeling her heart wrench at the sight of his battered face. There were butterfly stitches covering the real stitches above his left eye and the surrounding area was cut up from the glass and bruised deeply. Catherine was just about to ask him if he was okay when he spoke softly.

"You looked like you wanted to him me too when I told you what I had said to Sam," he said, his eyes still closed.

Catherine laughed lightly. "It wasn't exactly a great thing to say Nick."

"Oh I know that," Nick replied. "That's probably why I said it."

"That's not who you are," Catherine said, shaking her head even though she knew Nick couldn't see her. "Up and leaving her, saying things like that...it just doesn't sound like the Nick I know."

Nick opened his eyes and turned his head to look over at her. "It's not the Nick she knew either. I left so that I wouldn't hurt her any more than necessary. She doesn't believe me and thinks that me leaving was the worst possible thing, but it's not. If I had stayed, we would have fought more and it would have been horrific. I know me leaving wasn't a stand up thing to do, but it was best like that."

After a brief pause, Catherine replied with "You want her to hate you."

Nick frowned at her. "Why would I want that?"

"What happened with the baby, what you went through was awful. You were terrified and had no idea how to handle it. Fighting was the only thing that made sense because it was something you had control over. Losing the baby made you lose your sense of control, but you got that back by fighting with one another. You want her to hate you because you can control that, and if she hates you then you don't have to try and put the pieces of your broken life back together. It's easier if she hates you," Catherine explained.

Nick shook his head slowly. "I don't want her to hate me," he said quietly. "I hate that she hates me because it reminds me of what happened and what I did to her, but it's for the best. It's the best thing for her because not being with me saved her from a lot of bullshit. If we had been together and lived here with all the shit that happened to me here...that wouldn't have been fair to her. She deserves a normal life where she doesn't have to go through torturous things like that because of me. All I do is cause her pain."

"Do you still love her?" Catherine asked simply, basically disregarding everything he had just said.

"It's not that easy," he replied.

"Yes it is," Catherine said, nodding slightly. "We're not talking about you trying to fix what you did or get back together with her or forget everything that has happened to you. All of that is extremely messy and complicated, but the question of whether or not you're still in love with her is straight forward. It's the simplest part of all of this."

"No it's not," Nick argued. "I haven't seen or talked to her in fourteen years. The last two times I've seen her, we've gotten into a fight. The last one ended with me in the hospital. How can I-"

"Stop trying to talk yourself out of how you feel," Catherine interjected. "You can convince yourself of anything if you try hard enough Nick. It's a yes or no. Don't be afraid of the answer, and stop trying to change it."

Nick looked away from Catherine and stared straight in front of him through the windshield at his house. "It doesn't matter," he said, giving her the same answer he had given Greg. "It won't change anything, it just makes this hurt even more to think about it."

Catherine knew Nick was upset, but she also knew that getting him to say it would make him feel better. "Do you still love her?" she asked again, continuing to push him.

"Of course I do!" Nick exclaimed in a mixture of frustration and confusion. "I've been in love with her since the first night I met her, nothing could ever change that. But it doesn't matter, nothing will ever be like it was. She hates me, and I deserve that. She deserves a perfect life with a perfect guy and a perfect family. I can't give her that. I tried, and I fucked it up. I fucked everything up. It doesn't make a difference how much I still love her."

"How do you know?" Catherine asked.

"Because I know her," Nick said. "She doesn't want to hear that I'm sorry or that I still love her."

Catherine shrugged. "Then what does she want to hear?"

Nick didn't answer her. He was done talking, especially about this. He opened the door and got out of the car into the hot Vegas afternoon and immediately felt the heat affecting his already damaged head. He soldiered on to his front door, which he opened with only slight difficulty before closing it behind him and escaping from the heat. He leaned up against it's solid frame and sighed deeply. He stayed where he was, with all of his weight against the door, until he finally heard Catherine's car drive away down the street. Only then did he drag himself down the hallway to his bedroom where he crawled into bed and was asleep as soon as he put his head down on his cool, welcoming pillow.

* * *

><p><em>Nick had been unable to take his eyes off of her the entire time that he had been at that party. It was the first weekend of college, and he was only eighteen years old, but he could already say with great confidence that she was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. There was more to her, he could tell. She wasn't all dressed up like all of the other girls at the party were who were trying to impress all the guys, which they had done effectively. She wasn't all done up in make up and wasn't accepting any of the alcohol being offered to her, not even by the upperclassmen who were falling all over themselves to try and talk to her. She was extremely composed and seemed so down to Earth; he wished he had the guts to go talk to her.<em>

_Instead, he headed for the back of the frat house that he would end up pledging at and ventured out on to the back porch, which was surprisingly vacant. He sat in an empty chair and tried to relax for the first time that week. The first week of college was more than hectic, which was evident by the amount of drunk freshman at the party. He was both physically and emotionally drained and all he wanted to do was go back to his room and sleep, but he was there with his roommate and a few friends and didn't want to ditch him. He ended up being very glad that he had stayed._

_"Mind if I sit here?" Nick looked up and felt his heart jump into his throat when he saw that girl from inside standing next to him, motioning to the open chair next to him. Words escaping him, he merely shook his head lamely and she sat down with a small smile. "It's so crazy in there," she said, trying to make small talk._

_Nick nodded in agreement. "You should have seen it last night. It gave 'Animal House' a run for its money."_

_She laughed. "Hey, you're in my writing class, right?"_

_He knew he was, he had noticed her the very first day of class and she stood out against every one else every time he had seen her after that. "Yeah, yeah I think so," he said, trying to play it cool. "You were sitting near the kid that brought a beer to class."_

_"Yes, yes I was," she said, laughing again. "My name's Sam."_

_"Nick," he replied, shaking her outstretched hand._

_"So where are you from, Nick?" she asked._

_"Belton," he replied. "What about you?"_

_"Dallas," she answered. "You're actually the first person I've talked to that's from Texas. Every one else I know here is from out of state. They heard it was a big party school I guess."_

_There was a loud crash from inside the house, followed by an eruption of laughter and cheering. "I guess they were right," Nick said, laughing slightly._

_"How do you like school so far?" she asked, keeping the conversation going._

_"Love it," Nick replied. "I was getting pretty sick of high school. What about you?"_

_"Same," Sam answered. "It's an easier transition than I thought it was going to be."_

_Nick nodded in agreement. "Do you know anyone that goes here already or came from your high school?"_

_"A few people, but not anybody that I'm friends with or know that well," Sam replied. "Do you?"_

_"Yeah, a few kids I played football with came here and a lot of kids that went to my high school go here every year."_

_Sam smiled slightly. "Did you know any of those girls from in there from high school? Ya know, the ones that were hanging all over you," she said with a small laugh._

_Nick was glad it was dark out and that she wouldn't be able to tell he was blushing. "No," he said, laughing slightly himself. "I don't know them and bet they won't remember me tomorrow, which is fine by me."_

_"You're the only guy at this party that's not looking to get laid," she said, still laughing._

_"Yeah, well, you're the only girl at this party that's not dressed like a hooker, drinking a bunch of alcohol and trying to hook up with anybody that will look twice at you."_

_Sam nodded. "True, I guess we're both outcasts in that respect."_

_Before Nick could reply, the back door opened and a very drunk kid stumbled out onto the deck and braced himself by putting both hands on Nick's shoulders. "Dude," the kid said, slurring even the one syllable word. "I'm going with that chick back to her room. The best part is, I'm drunker than she is."_

_Nick couldn't help but laugh. "Okay," he said. "You good to get there alright?"_

_The kid laughed. "Oh yeah, I'll get there just fine, don't you worry Nicky."_

_Nick shook his head at his drunk friend. "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow then. Have fun."_

_"Want me to go grab you a chick?" the kid asked. "There's tons of them in there dude. Tons. They all wanted to get with you anyway, then you disappeared. Worked out well for me though, so thanks."_

_"Nah, I'm good," Nick replied, still laughing._

_"Whatever man, see ya later."_

_The kid happily stumbled back inside, leaving Nick and Sam alone on the porch again. "Friend of yours?" Sam asked in amusement._

_Nick nodded. "Yeah, Josh. I've been friends with him for as long as I can remember. He's a little wild, but he's a good kid. For the most part."_

_They were suddenly interrupted again by another drunk kid coming out onto the porch, but this time he was here to see Sam, not Nick. "Hey girl," he said, pulling her to her feet unwillingly. "Let's get out of here, go to my room, have some fun."_

_Sam pulled her arm away from the guy she didn't even know. "Thanks, but I'm all set," she replied. She tried to back away from him, but he grabbed her wrist and kept her in place._

_"Hey man," Nick said, standing up quickly. "Leave her alone."_

_The other guy scoffed at Nick. "Fuck off kid." Sam wrestled away from his grasp and moved quickly to stand behind Nick as she began to get genuinely nervous about the situation. "She's leaving with me, not you," the guy said forcefully._

_Nick shook his head. "She's not leaving with either one of us. Don't be a dick, just go back inside and leave her alone."_

_The kid shoved Nick, forcing him back against Sam, but the other kid was very drunk and unsteady on his feet. Nick pushed him back, causing him to trip over the chair Sam had been sitting in and fall heavily to the ground. He groaned, but made no attempt at getting up any time in the near future._

_"That was pretty pathetic," Nick mumbled, then realized Sam was still standing behind him. He turned around and saw that her hands were shaking. "Are you okay?" he asked._

_Sam nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said softly, looking over at the drunk idiot on the ground. "He just, that kind of scared me," she admitted, looking up at Nick sheepishly. "I'm glad you were out here," she said, smiling slightly. "Thanks."_

_Nick shrugged. "No problem," he said, smiling back._

_"I should go, but I think my roommate is staying. She's 'dating' one of the guys that's a brother here," she said, motioning to the house with her head._

_"Do you want me to walk you back to your room?" Nick offered._

_Sam shook her head. "No, you don't have to do that. It's on the other side of campus, I'll be fine."_

_"I don't mind," Nick said. "I've got nothing better to do."_

* * *

><p>Next chapter should be up soon!<p> 


	7. Days of the Old

Sam looked up at Brass through tears in her tired eyes when he walked into the police department's waiting room. She was exhausted, hungry, worried and nervous; creating a very unpleasant and uncomfortable feeling. This was another one of those times where she wished that she was a hell of a lot stronger emotionally than she was.

"You're free to go," Brass said with a small smile.

Sam frowned in slight confusion. "Why?" she asked.

Brass laughed. "I think that's the first time anyone has ever questioned my releasing them from the police," he joked, somewhat seriously. "Nick was just released from the hospital with a serious concussion, but nothing more. He's not going to press charges, so you're free to go," he added simply.

"Of course he's not," Sam said with a sad smile. She stood to leave, but didn't right away. "Is he going to be okay?"

Brass nodded. "Yeah, after a lot of rest, he'll be fine."

Sam nodded her thanks silently before finally leaving the station and taking shelter in her overheated car. The intense heat inside the vehicle did nothing to alleviate her emotional stress, but only made it worse and more unbearable. She didn't even attempt to take out her keys to start the car and get the air conditioning on. Instead, she let her head fall into her hands as the tears flooded from her eyes. The events of the past week or so had been too much for any one person to handle emotionally, and now it was finally getting the best of her as she sat alone in her car with no idea of what she was supposed to do next.

* * *

><p>Nick had suffered concussions in his life before; it came with the territory of playing sports, especially football. He had dealt with concussions before, but never any this bad. Catherine had stayed with him for a few hours to make sure that he was alright because his symptoms were very severe; he was dizzy, nauseous, kept forgetting what he was trying to say or do, and couldn't stand for more than a few short minutes at a time. He woke up after falling asleep for a second time to the feeling that someone was taking a jack hammer to his skull. He couldn't open his eyes because he was sensitive to even the smallest amount of light, which was coming from the cracked bedroom door leading out to the hallway. After a few minutes of laying in his bed in extreme pain, his headache subsided enough for him to stagger into the kitchen and get a glass of water, which didn't help anything at all. He had never felt like this in his life before and was getting worried; he was just about to get his phone and call Catherine when there was a knock at his door.<p>

After bracing himself against the wall for long enough to be able to walk, Nick slowly made his way over to the door. He still had the same jeans on from the night before, but his t-shirt had been changed from his previous one that had become bloodstained. He made it to the door in record slow time and pulled it open quickly for fear that he would pass out before he could usher Catherine inside to help him. Upon opening the door, Nick discovered that it wasn't Catherine. Seeing who he thought it was only made him more worried that his condition was very serious and too much for him to handle himself that he wished he had called Catherine before opening the door to see the apparent illusion on his front porch. Against his better judgment, the pain in his heart told him that Sam really was standing in front of him, and after a few blurry seconds he knew it was for real.

Sam had never before seen Nick look the way that he did right now. He was extremely pale with dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. The bandages and butterfly stitches covering his wounds had been displaced when he had been sleeping, revealing the dark bruises and cuts underneath them. Tears started building up in her eyes at the sight of him and the knowledge that she was the one who had done this to him. After everything she had been through because of him, seeing him in such a bad condition made her forget all of that and completely regret what she had recently done to him. Her throat felt like it had completely closed and her hands were shaking by her side so bad that she couldn't look at him anymore. She turned and took a few short steps away from his house before she stopped herself and turned back around, but Nick wasn't there anymore.

He had become so light headed and nauseous that once Sam had turned to apparently leave, Nick stumbled back into his house and collapsed on the couch. When Sam turned back around, she saw that Nick was no longer standing there, but the door was still open. She was genuinely worried about him, so she hurried into the house, shutting the door behind her. She found him on the couch with his clenched fists pressed against his forehead, obviously trying to make the extreme pain in his head go away. Sam knelt down on the floor next to Nick, wanting to help him but not entirely sure what she should do.

"You don't have to be here," Nick said through clenched teeth. "I'm gonna call Catherine. She can come over."

Sam shook her head even though she knew Nick's eyes were tightly closed. "You need help now," she said softly.

Nick suddenly sat up, his eyes still closed. "I'm gonna be sick," he mumbled before staggering to his feet and somehow blindly making his way to the bathroom. Sam stayed frozen where she was, unsure of whether she should call Catherine for Nick and just leave or stay and help him deal with the problem that she caused. After hearing him get sick to his stomach several times, she knew she couldn't just leave him here to wait for someone else to come help him. She quickly got up and went into the bathroom, where she found Nick slumped against the wall, his eyes still closed.

After taking in the sight of Nick suffering on the floor, Sam noticed that the bathroom mirror was shattered. Someone had cleaned up the broken pieces that had undoubtedly been scattered across the counter. While looking around, she also saw peroxide, gauze, butterfly stitches and tape that she would need to redress Nick's wounds were all in a box on the bathroom sink, probably left there by Catherine before she had left. She grabbed the box, forgetting about the broken mirror, before going over and sitting on the cold floor next to Nick, who finally opened his eyes and looked at her for the first time since he had opened the door.

"Why are you here?" he asked softly.

Sam shook her head slowly. "I don't know," she replied. "But these cuts need to be cleaned, and you need someone here with you."

Nick silently nodded as he adjusted his position so he was leaned back with his head resting against the side of the tub. He closed his eyes again and to his surprise, the room stopped spinning so fast. He flinched slightly when Sam pulled off the dirty bandages so she could clean the cuts. His head was still pounding and he felt like he was going to be sick to his stomach again very soon.

"This is gonna sting," Sam said before she started rubbing the peroxide over Nick's cuts. He grimaced, but didn't pull away or flinch hardly at all. He just sat there silently as Sam cleaned and redressed his wounds gently, causing him as little additional pain as possible. His hand that had been shut in the door was also bandaged, but Sam let that be and didn't bring it up.

When she was finished, she put the box back on the counter and ran a face cloth under cold water before ringing it out, folding it and going back over to Nick to hold it on his forehead for him. It didn't do much to alleviate his headache, but it did enough to make Nick grateful that Sam was there with him right now.

A drop of water fell from the facecloth and slowly trickled down the uninjured side of Nick's face, causing Sam to involuntarily reach out and gently wipe it away. Her hand continued its motion upwards until it reached Nick's short, dark hair. She lightly brushed her fingers over the soft edges briefly before pulling her hand away when he looked up at her with a small smile.

"I don't remember our fight," he said quietly, "but I know that it was my fault and that I'm sorry."

Sam shook her head. "I wanted to fight with you," she said. "I want to hate you and I want to yell at you, but when I saw you all I wanted to do was hug you and kiss you because I thought that that would make everything that had happened go away and everything would be okay again. I knew that wasn't true, so I tried to hate you by fighting with you."

"I remember I said something awful," Nick replied. "I can't remember what it was. I told Catherine, but then I forgot. I can't remember anything I said or you said, but I know none of it was any good. Even though I can't remember, I'm sorry for whatever I said."

"It doesn't matter now," Sam responded. "I shouldn't have hit you with that glass. I didn't want to hurt you, I just wanted you to shut up."

Nick smiled. "You knew that was the only way you were gonna get me to shut up."

Sam laughed sadly. "Yeah, I guess that's true." She watched as Nick closed his eyes again against another onset of severe pain emanating from his injured head. Laying on a bathroom floor using a bathtub as a pillow couldn't be the best thing for him right now. "Come on," Sam said, removing the facecloth from his head. "You need to get to bed before you pass out here. We both know I can't carry you."

Nick nodded in agreement. "Okay," he said weakly.

Sam draped his left arm over her shoulders and slowly helped him to his feet. When they were finally standing, Sam wrapped her arm around his waist to support him more as they made their way into his bedroom in the next room over. It was fairly dark in the room, but Sam was able to help Nick maneuver over to the side of the bed, at which point Sam assumed Nick would happily fall down onto the mattress and fall asleep instantly, but he didn't.

He instead turned to face her, putting his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him with surprise, but didn't say anything. He slowly moved his hands down her arms until her hands were in his. She was still mad at him for everything, and she was still trying very hard to hate him. But seeing him so injured and vulnerable had made her remember how worried she had been when he had first left that something awful had happened to him. He left, he broke her heart, and she didn't know if she could ever forgive him or get over that. But despite all of that, he was the only guy she had ever loved, and he knew that. He still had the same power over her that she still held over him. They both knew that what had happened in the past didn't matter at that very moment because it hadn't changed how they felt about each other, even if they had yet to express it aloud.

It was dark in the room, but there was enough light left for them to be able to look into each others eyes. She held on to his hands tightly; she had really missed these hands and being able to hold them.

"God, I missed you," he breathed softly before pulling her against him and finally kissing her.

Sam didn't want to give in, but knew she was going to. She always gave in to him, no matter what. She forgot about everything else that had recently been said and done and kissed him back, reveling in the intoxicating familiar feeling. After a moment or two, she felt his hands begin to shake in hers. She knew he was beyond exhausted and severely concussed and needed to rest, now, and she knew exactly how to get him to do that.

She gently pulled her hands away from his, but kept kissing him. She moved her hands to his jeans deftly undoing them and pushing them down until they slid off. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself fall back onto the bed, pulling him slowly down with her. His shaking body covered hers as he was unable to support his own body weight.

"You need to sleep," she whispered in his ear.

He shook his head. "I don't want to."

Sam gently rolled him over onto his other side and pulled the covers over him. "You need to," she said, reaching out and running her hand through his hair.

He was struggling to keep his eyes open as his vision was blurring and starting to fade. "You don't have to stay, but I don't want you to leave. I don't want to be alone, I want you here." His eyes fell closed and he sighed heavily. "I miss you and I need you. You have no idea."


	8. Disparity by Design

Sam was standing in the bathroom, staring at the broken mirror when she heard the front door open and close quietly. The remaining pieces of the mirror revealed her reflection as choppy and distorted because of the spider web pattern that now covered the glass. She had been wondering what happened to it, but figured she could worry about that later when she heard someone calling for Nick from the kitchen. Sam walked over to the room and saw who she presumed to be Catherine putting newly bought groceries into the fridge. Sam stopped just short of entering the kitchen, unsure of what to say or do.

Catherine looked up as she closed the door to the fridge. "You must be Sam," she said with a small smile. "I'm Catherine." She went over and extended her hand to Sam, who shook it silently. "Is Nick okay?" she asked.

Sam shook her head. "Not really. He was having severe headaches and got sick to his stomach a few times. He was really shaky and light headed. He's been asleep for a few hours though, hopefully he'll be better when he wakes up."

"I shouldn't have left him by himself," Catherine said, shaking her head. "My daughter called, needed a ride, and I just got caught up. Luckily he was smart enough to call you."

"He didn't call me," Sam said, feeling the need to explain why she was here. "I just came over because I felt so bad about hitting him and I wanted to see him to be sure he was okay, but he's not. I was just going to leave, but-"

"He wanted you to stay," Catherine said, finishing her sentence for her. Sam nodded slightly. "You look like you could use a drink," Catherine said before fishing two beers out of Nick's fridge.

Sam laughed. "Yeah, I guess I could." She followed Catherine into the living room where they sat on the couch. Catherine handed Sam one of the beers with a smile. "Thank you," Sam said softly, clearly distracted by her thoughts.

"I was sorry to hear about Jeff," Catherine offered, trying to keep a conversation flowing.

"Thanks, so was I," Sam said. "I never thought something like that would ever happen to such a nice guy. But I guess you know that better than anyone else, being a CSI."

Catherine nodded in agreement. "Yes, unfortunately I do. Bad things happen to good people."

"You must hate me," Sam said suddenly, catching Catherine off guard. "I mean, you and Nick are obviously close friends, and I almost killed him. Like he hasn't been through enough out here."

"From what Nick told me about what he said, he deserved it," Catherine said. "I wasn't overjoyed that he was in the hospital again, but I can't say that I would have done anything different if I had been in your position. I have no idea what either one of you are going through. Normally, I would be judgmental and dislike you, but it seems like he's done his fair share of damage to you as well."

Sam sighed as she took a sip of her beer. "It was all so uncharacteristic of him. When I found out that I was pregnant, I was so scared to tell him. We were young, not married, didn't have an excess of money, and I was afraid he was going to be mad. My hands were shaking so bad and I kept stuttering when I told him, and he couldn't have been happier. I was freaking out about everything, and he was so great. He calmed me down and told me everything was going to be fine, and I believed him. Everything should have been fine."

Catherine genuinely felt sorry for the woman sitting next to her. "I'm so sorry you lost the baby," she said. "I can't even imagine what that was like."

"After the doctor's appointment where I found out I had a miscarriage, I went home and couldn't stop crying. Nick came home and I was such a wreck that I couldn't even tell him what was wrong. He just sat there hugging me and letting me cry hysterically for hours until I finally calmed down enough to nod or shake my head as he asked me what was wrong. I couldn't form a sentence, he had to play a guessing game to find out that his kid had died before they had even been born. And still, he was so great. We hadn't told our families yet, so I had no one else to go to but him. I wouldn't have made it through that first week without him. Then, once I started getting better, we started fighting. We didn't know what else to do, we were both so scared and vulnerable," Sam said softly, tears slowly falling from her eyes.

"Have you forgiven him for leaving?" Catherine asked.

Sam shook her head. "No. We didn't handle what happened the right way at all, if there is a right way to handle something like that. I don't know if I can ever forgive him, but I don't know what to do. These last fourteen years I thought I hated him and that I moved on, and then I saw him and that all changed. As mad as I am at him and what he did, I can't help but think about all the great things about him that was all I knew for eight years." She brushed the tears away. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. I shouldn't have come here, I should just leave."

Catherine stood before Sam could. "No, you shouldn't. You should stay. I know Nick, and I know that when he wakes up, he's going to want you here. It's about time you two handled everything you've both been keeping bottled up inside for the past fourteen years. The only thing that can help either one of you is each other."

Catherine walked over to the door and opened it, about to leave, but stopped when Sam spoke. "What if he doesn't want to deal with what happened in the past?" Sam asked.

"Knowing Nick, he won't want to," Catherine replied with a laugh. "So you'll have to force him. He's stubborn and hates dealing with his feelings, but he needs to. If he knows how much you care, he'll give in. Trust me."

Catherine smiled before she walked through the door, closing is silently behind her as she left. Sam remained sitting on the couch, completely unsure of what to do next. She was afraid to stay because she didn't want to fight with Nick anymore, but knew that that was inevitable. Tensions and emotions were running so high that there was no way to avoid another confrontation if they were expected to talk about the reason their lives had fallen apart. She knew that if she stayed here and talked to him and kept being around him that that would only make her want to be with him again, and she didn't think that was for the best for either of them. She didn't think it would work; they had been through so much and then it had all just been thrown away.

Sam was shaken from her thoughts when she heard the sound of glass shattering. She was confused at first, but then heard Nick stirring in his room and assumed that he had dropped the glass of water she had put by his bed for him. Her assumption was confirmed when she walked into Nick's room and saw him sitting up in his bed, looking down at the floor where pieces of shattered glass were in the pool of water.

Nick looked up when Sam walked into the room with a puzzled look on his face. "What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice soft and quiet, still laced with sleep.

Sam sighed. She should have known he probably wouldn't remember much, if anything, about the night before. "I've been here since late last night. I came over to apologize for hitting you, and you were really sick and having a lot of trouble because of the concussion so I stayed to make sure you were going to be okay."

"Oh," Nick replied. "Thanks."

Sam smiled. "It's the least I could do, this is my fault after all."

Nick shook his head. "I can't really remember anything, but I know that it was my fault. There's no way you would hit me if I didn't absolutely deserve it. It's always my fault." When Sam didn't reply, Nick asked, "What did I do? Or say?"

Sam looked away from Nick. "It doesn't matter now," she said, shaking her head slowly. "There's no point in bringing it up again."

"Which means there is," Nick replied. "If it didn't matter, you would have just told me what I did, told me I was an idiot, and left. But you didn't, which means whatever I did was really bad. I'm sorry for whatever it was, but my apology would be more genuine if I knew what I was sorry for."

"Do you really need anything else to be sorry for?" Sam asked before she even thought about what she was saying.

Nick hung his head. "Thanks for everything you've done," he said. "You can leave now."

Sam scoffed. "You're kicking me out?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, I am."

"Why?"

"Because we're fighting, again," he replied. "And it's only going to get worse, just like it did the other night. I don't remember what exactly was said, but I know we fought. We always fight. I'm so sick of fights, I hate them. I don't want to fight with you anymore, which means I can't be around you anymore."

Sam rolled her eyes. "So instead of trying to fix whatever is wrong with us, you just want me to leave so you can pretend nothing ever happened, just like you have for the last fourteen years?"

"It won't do any good," Nick said. "You don't want to forgive me, you never will. You'll never get over what I did, back then or the other night. You won't even tell me what else you're mad at me for."

Sam looked at Nick right in the eyes. "I told you that you were the worst thing that ever happened to me, and you told me that that meant losing the baby was the best thing that ever happened to me."

Nick opened his mouth to continue arguing, but then immediately snapped it shut when what Sam had just said sank in. He felt his throat tighten at the thought of what had happened to the baby, and his stomach churned at the notion that he had used that incredible heartbreak against her in an argument.

"You're screwing with me," Nick replied, his voice shallow and weak. "I didn't say that."

Sam scoffed. "Of course you didn't, you're perfect. You never do anything wrong. You never lie or pick fights for no reason or up and leave your entire life and family just because you're too messed up to deal with your problems."

"I didn't say that," Nick repeated, trying to ignore everything Sam had just said.

Sam locked eyes with him. "Yes you did, that's why I hit you. And I'm not sorry for that anymore, you deserved it."

Nick shook his head as he tried to swallow, but couldn't because of the lump in his throat. He couldn't have spoke even if he had had anything to say, which he didn't. Instead he threw the covers off of him and tried to stand up, but once his feet hit the floor and he tried to stand he felt a massive head rush and everything went back. He collapsed weakly backwards onto the bed behind him, his legs hanging off the side of the bed as he squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the sheets beneath him against the awful pain in his head.

"Please don't leave," Nick said through clenched teeth. Before Sam could reply, he kept talking. "You don't have to help me or anything or even care about me anymore but just stay until I can think and talk and I can make this better."

Sam shook his head. "You can't fix this Nick."

"I know," Nick replied. "I know I can't fix it but I can make it a little better, but if you leave, I know I'll never see you again and I can't take that. Please, just stay."

Sam couldn't see Nick's eyes, but heard the genuineness in his voice. Against her better judgment, she mumbled "Fine," before walking out of his room and back into the bathroom where she leaned forward against the counter, bracing herself with her hands against the cool marble. She looked into the broken mirror as tears fell from her tired eyes, shaking at the thought that what was under the shattered reflection was more deeply damaged than what was on the surface.

* * *

><p>Sorry for the time lapse in between updates, I've been busy with vacations and work. Thanks for continuing to read and hopefully reviewing!<p> 


	9. Not Enough

"Can I ask you something?" Nick asked, his reflection suddenly appearing in the shattered mirror as he stood in the doorway, bracing himself by leaning against the door frame. He didn't expect Sam to answer or acknowledge his presence, so he was very surprised when she responded.

She stared at him through the mirror, refusing to turn around and face him. "Seeing as how the only way I can make you shut up is to knock you unconscious and the last time I did that I almost killed you...yeah, go for it."

Nick couldn't help but smile at that, and knew that him smiling only mad Sam more aggravated because she used to love his smile. "When was the last time I did something that made you happy?" he asked softly.

"What are you talking about?" Sam ashed, shaking her head.

"For the last fourteen years, you've hated me. Understandably so, but still. I just wanted to know if you could even remember the last time I made you even remotely happy."

"When you left," Sam replied, still only making eye contact with Nick through the mirror.

Nick's smile faded, but didn't disappear. "I knew you were going to say that." He looked down at the floor and as he turned to leave, he uttered one simple word that he knew would make Sam chase him. "Liar."

He turned and walked down the hall into the living room, where he collapsed onto the couch. It was mere seconds before Sam was towering over him with tears in her tired eyes.

"It takes a liar to know one then," she shot back the somewhat childish, but true nonetheless, response.

"So you were lying," Nick replied. "Answer the question. When was the last time I made you happy?"

A single tear trickled from Sam's left eye. "The day that I found the papers and realized that you had lied."

Nick frowned at that. "What are you talking about?" he asked softly.

"That morning," she said, wiping the tear from her cheek, "I woke up earlier than you for once. I was in the kitchen making coffee and you snuck up behind me, wrapped your arms around my waist and kissed me on the cheek and told me you loved me. You used to do that multiple times a day, but after we lost the baby you didn't do it as much, if ever. When you did it that day, it reminded me of when we first started dating and all the great years that followed and reminded me just how much I love you. Loved you."

Nick felt is own tears start to prickle his eyes. "I remember that," he said softly. "I didn't do it anymore after what happened because you flinched almost every time I got anywhere near you. You were so scared and jumpy all the time, I was afraid to hurt you or something." His voice was low and weak, matching how he felt at the time.

"You weren't going to breake me Nick," Sam said. "Maybe that would have helped and stopped us from fighting so much."

Nick shook his head slowly. "Don't," he pleaded weakly.

Sam sighed heavily. "You do realize that we have never talked about any of this, right?"

"It's been fourteen years Sam," Nick replied. "The only thing that will come of this is more fighting and more hatred."

"So you hate me now?" she asked.

Nick shook his head. "I could never hate you, you didn't do anything to me," he answered. "But there's nothing I can say to you that can change what I did and how badly I made you feel."

"Then why wouldn't you let me leave?" Sam asked angrily. "You made me stay so that you could try and fix things, make them better. You asked me to stay so that you could talk to me because if I left you knew you would never see me again."

"I know what I said," Nick said matter of factly.

Sam scoffed. "Then why did you make me stay?"

"I didn't make you stay," Nick replied. "I asked you to so that I could see what you were going to do. You stayed because you want to, not because I made you. I was about to pass out, you could have told me to fuck off and left and never had to see me ever again, but you didn't."

"Don't pretend you know me," she shot back. "Don't act like you know what I'm thinking and how I feel."

"I do," Nick answered, getting to his feet. "You stayed because you want to be here. You want to fight with me, you want to try and make this better because the way we left things is killing you just as much as it's killing me and if we leave it like this, neither one of us will be able to handle it. You don't want to never see me again, you don't want this to be the end."

Tears began to fall from Sam's eyes once more. "You have no idea what you're talking about. All those times I talked to Jess all those years after you left...she told me everything that happened to you here. The lady that pulled a gun on you, the stalker that pushed you out of the window and tried to kill, the guy that buried you alive, the serial killer you killed and that shot you and the cop that died because of you, and those kids you killed. She told me everything because she was hoping that hearing about all the terrible things that happened to you would make me realize I still loved you and would make me call you or go see you and things would go back to the way they were. She told me all of that, but did I ever call you? I knew all of it, but I never called you because I was trying to get over you."

"You asked Greg if I was okay," Nick said in his defense. "Don't try and pretend you don't care."

Sam shook her head. "I don't Nick. Whenever my phone would ring and I saw that it was Jess, I prayed that I would pick it up and she would tell me that something else happened, something worse. Every time I picked up that phone I was wishing it would be her telling me that you were dead. All those years, I was hoping and waiting for the phone call telling me that you finally got what you deserved."

Nick was completely awestruck. Sam had never, ever been a mean person. He had never heard her say anything bad about anyone else, nevermind admittedly wish death upon them. Hearing her say that struck deep and hard, and only reminded him of just how much he had hurt her. He had never intended any of this to happen; he felt like most of it was ripped out of his control and that someone else had pushed all the buttons and pulled all the levers that had gotten them to this very point. She seemed to be a completely different person now, and that was because of what he had done to her. He had immensely hurt the only woman that he had ever loved, and he had done so in the worst possible way. He should have never gone over to her house that night; he should have just let her out of his life one last time because it would have been better for the both of them.

Instead of shutting up and not offering a response to such a harsh, yet true statement, Nick felt the pressing need to reply. "I used to wish one of those situations had killed me too," he said, the honesty evident in his dark eyes. "I don't blame you for wanting me dead, but you have to know that you're the reason I'm still here. When I was buried alive in that box, running out of air so fast and being eaten alive by those fucking ants, I had the gun to my head for at least an hour. All I had to do was pull the trigger and it would have all been over, all the pain and torment. But I couldn't because the only thing I could think about was you, and I couldn't just give up and accept that I was never going to see you again or hear your voice. I knew it was a long shot that we would ever speak, let alone see each other ever again, but the thought was enough. The thought of you was the only thing that kept me from pulling the trigger that night."

Sam tore her eyes away from Nick's and looked up at the ceiling, wishing something was written there to tell her what to say or do. "I have such a hard time believing anything you say anymore," she said, looking back at him as her voice cracked with emotion. "Anything you've said to me as of the last fourteen years has either been a lie or a comment to cause me pain or start a fight. I'm guilty of instigating fights, but I never lied to you."

"Ask me anything," Nick replied, shrugging his shoulders. "I've only lied to you once, and it was to protect you. Ask me whatever you want, I won't lie."

Sam shook her head. "How can I tell if you're lying or not?"

"You're going to hate my answers," Nick replied. "I guarantee it."

"Fine," she said, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "How many women have you dated since you left?"

"Dated?" Nick asked. "None," he said. "I haven't dated any, but I've slept with a few, some that I can't even remember. The ones that I do remember I wish I didn't. I slept with a hooker, who I knew was a hooker but didn't pay her or anything because it was consensual, and then she was murdered by her pimp and I was the prime suspect until Catherine proved I was innocent. Then there was the girl I knew that I ran into at a bar I was at with Catherine, who I left with, resulting in Catherine being abducted and almost raped. And we can't forget the waitress at the diner, who I didn't sleep with, just wanted to, but that got my best friend murdered. I haven't dated any of them because I'm too fucked up and incapable of loving anyone because I'm afraid of what will come of it, and because none of them were even close to you."

"Stop trying to sweet talk me," Sam said, holding her hand up.

"I'm not," he responded. "I'm just telling you the truth about anything you want to know. I have no reason to lie to you, especially now."

"A hooker?" Sam asked. "Really?"

"I met her when I worked a case, then she called me when she got in trouble a couple times...it doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," Sam replied. "You turned into a slut up here and apparently got a bunch of people killed." At the sight of Nick's face becoming immediately pale, she regretted saying that. "I'm sorry, Jess told me you blamed yourself for so much that wasn't your fault. I didn't mean that, I know it wasn't your fault even if you don't know that." Nick remained silent, and for some reason Sam just had to know more. "How many people have you killed?" she asked, her voice hardly a whisper.

"Three," Nick replied. "Two of them were kids, one was a serial killer. All of them pulled a gun and were going to kill more people if I hadn't..." he trailed off, not needing to finish his sentence. "I'm not proud of it, and I wish there had been another way, but there wasn't. I did what I had to."

Sam nodded weakly, wishing she hadn't pressed into an obviously sensitive subject. She didn't know what to do anymore and had no idea what Nick wanted from her.

"I don't want you to hate me," Nick said, reading Sam's mind yet again. "I know I deserve it and I don't blame you for it, but that doesn't mean I want it to be that way. I never wanted to hurt you, I only wanted what was best for you because I love you. I still love you Sam, I always have and I always will no matter what."

The tears were now falling freely from her eyes, propelling down her cheeks and disappearing over her collarbone beneath her shirt. "What do you want me to say?"

"That you'll stay here so we can finally talk about everything, and then you can leave and forget about me forever. But if we don't talk about this, don't try and get some sort of closure, it's going to kill me."

"I don't know if I'm that strong," Sam managed to reply through the lump in her throat.

Nick smiled and shook his head slowly. "You're not that weak."

* * *

><p>Sorry for the little cliff hanger, next chapter will be up soon! Thanks for reading and reviewing, it means a lot! =)<p> 


	10. Decode

They hadn't spoken in almost a half hour since they had decided to talk about what had happened. They were both mentally and physically preparing for the long awaited conversation to finally take place. Sam was sitting on one end of the couch with her knees hugged against her chest, facing Nick, who was at the other end, leaning forward so he was resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes down at the floor but his body was still facing her. They were both wondering who was going to break the silence; neither one of them entirely sure of how to begin this. The tension and emotion that came along with dealing with a situation as explosive as this one would only complicate matters more if they allowed their feelings to get the better of them in the worst way.

"Why did you break the mirror?" Sam asked suddenly.

The unexpected question and noise combined to startle Nick and make his heart jump a little. He looked up at her in confusion. "What difference does it make?" he wanted to know.

"You know me," she replied. "I can't focus on one thing if something else is bothering me, especially if I can't figure it out. I need to know why so we can move on and talk about what we really need to talk about. Besides, I think it does make a difference. I think it has something to do with our whole endeavor we've got going on here."

"Why do you think I did it?" Nick questioned.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to deflect this onto me. If I knew why you did it, I wouldn't have asked. Just answer the question Nick."

He sighed heavily as he ran a hand through his hair. "I broke it because I hate what I see in it," he answered honestly. "I saw the cuts on my face, and they reminded me of what I did to you. Which reminded me of what I could have had with you if I hadn't completely fucked everything up, which only reminded me of how miserable I've been for the last fourteen years without you, knowing that I broke your heart and betrayed you. I couldn't stand to look at my reflection anymore because I didn't recognize the person staring back at me as me anymore."

Sam nodded once. "So you do feel guilty for what you did," she stated more than asked.

"Of course I do," Nick said. "Did you really ever believe that I left just to hurt you? Do you honestly think that I would ever do anything to intentionally cause you pain?"

"After everything, yeah, I do," she responded. "In the weeks after we lost the baby, you would say and do these mean things just to start fights. I did it a few times too, but it seemed like all you wanted to do was to fight with me. Why did you do that?"

Nick looked back down at the floor. "I don't know," he said weakly.

"Nick," Sam said firmly, "if you're not going to be honest with me, this isn't going to work. You know that I know you better than to just accept your lame excuses at trying to avoid questions you don't want to answer. I'm sure there's things you want me to answer, and I will, as long as you answer mine too. That way we both get something relatively positive out of this. So, why did you do that to me?"

Nick tore his eyes away from the floor and looked at her again, knowing that she was right. "I was afraid that I didn't start fights and try and find reasons to be mad at you, then you were going to hate me for the miscarriage being my fault."

"But it wasn't your fault," Sam said, shaking her head.

"You didn't know that at first," he replied. "I told you that it was because I smoked or something like that, and you believed me. You said you didn't blame me and that it was just bad luck, but I was getting so nervous that you were going to eventually hate me for it. So I attacked you before you could convince yourself to be mad and resent me for losing the baby. I figured if I made you play defense enough, you wouldn't think about why you should be mad at me. Why you should hate me."

"You need to know that I don't hate you," Sam said quietly. "I never have, I could never hate you. I've come as close as possible that someone can to hate, but never gotten there. I've tried extremely hard, but know that it's impossible because despite everything that you did to hurt me, I know the real you and I know how great you really are, and I've never forgotten about that."

Nick leaned back against the arm of the couch, completely turned towards her now. "I wish there was something I could say to erase everything I've put you through, but there isn't. I'm sorry for what I did, and I know that that will never be enough, but it's all I've got to offer you. I'll gladly sit here and talk to you for the rest of my life, but I'm doing it for you, not me. You don't owe me any answers. You don't owe me anything."

"I want you to promise that you'll let me ask you anything, and you'll try as hard as you can for as long as you can not to get mad and freak out."

Nick smiled slightly. "I promise. I can't get mad at you, you've done nothing to me."

Sam nodded slowly. "I know, but some of the things I want to ask you might hurt."

"I deserve it."

She took a deep breath. "Okay," she started hesitantly. "Was there any part of you that was glad we didn't have the baby? Any part of you at all?"

Nick immediately shook his head. "Absolutely not. I mean, I was nervous as hell about it, but I wanted it to happen. It may not have seemed like the perfect situation to anyone else, but it was perfect for me. We were living together and in love, and there was no one else I would have wanted to be with in that situation. I wanted nothing more than to have a family with you. I would have given my life for you and our baby."

Sam was momentarily choked up with tears, so Nick took the opportunity to interject a quick question of his own. "Were you ever mad at me for smoking and causing it? I mean, before you found out I lied and still thought it was my fault. Was I even close to right in thinking you resented me for it?"

"I didn't blame you," she replied. "And it didn't make me mad until when we started fighting and you would go outside and smoke all the time to try and calm down. That pissed me off because I couldn't understand why you were resorting to the thing that took our baby as something to help you. I should have known it didn't add up, but I wasn't thinking clearly. That's why I would get so mad so quickly, because I was already on edge because you were smoking so much."

"Lying to you just made me really paranoid I guess," he said with a sad smile. "This really is all my fault."

"No it's not," Sam argued gently. "I did nothing to help matters. I shouldn't have left that night, I shouldn't have said what I said and just left you there after everything that had happened."

Nick shook his head. "You did nothing wrong. I shouldn't have ran away from you, from everything, just because I was scared that we wouldn't be able to deal with what happened. I took a bad situation and made it worse. I was young and stupid and had no idea how to deal with anything."

"So was I," Sam agreed. "Neither one of us did anything right, we both made a lot of mistakes. We can't change them now. Talking helps, but it can't fix or change what happened fourteen years ago."

"I know," he whispered. "I would do anything to change everything."

"Everything?" Sam asked teasingly.

Nick smiled slightly. "Not everything, just the bad stuff," he replied. "I wouldn't change the times in college where you would show up at the door of my classes and stare at me until I would sneak out to go for walks with you. I wouldn't change the nights that you pretended to fall asleep on my shoulder while studying or watching a movie just to have an excuse to sleep over. I wouldn't change the fact that when we were living together, I almost never had a hot shower because you always showered first and would use all the hot water on me. I would never change the nights we just stayed home, watched re-runs and just hung out because every second I spent with you was the best of my life."

Sam wiped at the tears spilling down her cheeks in a futile effort to make them stop. "I should have called you when I found out you were in Vegas. I should have followed you and told you how sorry I was and everything would have been okay, I shouldn't have just sat there and done nothing and let you get away..." she trailed off as emotion overtook her.

Nick quickly moved across the couch until he was right next to her. Her legs were on either side of him and her hands were covering her face. He gently pulled her hands down and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. "Don't you dare blame yourself for this," he said quietly, but sincerely. "I can't sit here and let you think that it was your fault. You weren't the one who should have done anything, it was me. I shouldn't have left, and after I did, I should have followed my gut and ran back to you and found a way to make you forgive me. But I didn't, because I'm a fuck up. There's a lot of things I didn't do, but the one thing I will do is be completely sure that you never, ever make yourself feel like this because it wasn't your fault."

Sam pulled Nick's hand away from her face, but kept a firm grip on it as she held it down by her side. "Why didn't you ever call me or anything? Why didn't you just come back?"

The hurt and pain in her voice and eyes was almost enough to make him run away again. "Because I knew things would never be the same ever again, and I knew it was my fault. I didn't want to come back and keep making things worse. I didn't want to keep hurting you, so I stayed away from you. I thought you were better off without me, and when I never heard from you, I knew it was true."

Sam pulled her hand away from his. "You're crazy," she said simply. Nick just stared back at her dumbly and didn't say anything. "I didn't run after you because it was pretty clear to me you didn't want to be with me anymore. I thought that after everything that had happened, you had just had enough and wanted to start over, without me. What was I supposed to do? What could I have done that would have made you come back?"

"Nothing," he said, forcing the word through the lump in his throat. "I should have just came back, but I didn't. And when Jess told me you were with Jeff, and living with him and everything, I thought you had moved on and forgot about me." Sam opened her mouth to argue, but Nick continued so she couldn't. "We can sit here for days and try to pin point where every little thing went wrong, but that's not going to do us any good."

Sam tried to move back farther away from Nick, but she was right up against the arm of the couch and couldn't budge any more. "Then what is it you suggest we do?" she asked.

"Say what we should have said fourteen years ago," he replied. "When we lost the baby, I was devastated. It is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me, especially since it's the reason I lost you too. I had no idea how to handle it and was terrified that for the rest of our lives, it would be hanging over our heads and haunting us forever. I was afraid you would change your mind about wanting to be with me and have a family with me."

Sam shook her head. "Why didn't you just tell me that?"

"Because I was afraid I was right."

"Well, you were wrong," she said, taking his hand in hers again. "I thought that you were the one that was going to change your mind. I didn't see how you could ever be attracted to me ever again and that that was why you were so distant and never touched me anymore. I know it sounds stupid and selfish, but it's true."

"Fuck," Nick breathed. "You should never have though that. It couldn't be farther from the truth. I was just scared and didn't want to suffocate you or make you feel overwhelmed. I just...I should have asked you. I should have talked to you, like this, back then. Why didn't you say anything then? You know you could have talked to me about anything."

"I didn't want to be an even bigger burden on you. You were already trying to deal with losing the baby and keeping me from going insane, I didn't want to start complaining that you weren't paying enough attention to me."

Nick sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," he said, looking down at his hand, still being held in hers. "I don't know what else I can give you at this point. Everything I try and explain just makes it all worse."

Sam put her other hand on the side of Nick's face, making him look up at her. "No, it doesn't. It actually helps. Now I know how you actually felt and what you were thinking after all these years. It doesn't change anything, but now I know you cared."

"I still care," Nick replied softly. "I've always cared, even when it seemed like I was being a total fucking idiot, I've always cared about you. I've always loved you."

Sam moved her hand through Nick's hair, leaving it there in the soft and familiar feeling. "I don't know what to do now," she said, more to herself than to him. "I told myself not to trust you, not to fall into this again because I can't have you and then not have you, it hurts too much. I can't go through that again. I don't know what to do."

"I'm not the same person that I was back then Sam," Nick said, looking back down away from her eyes. He put his hand on her wrist, but didn't pull her hand away from his hair. "You don't want to do this with me again, trust me. I can't be what you want, I can't be what you deserve. Not anymore."

"I know that's not true," Sam replied, and Nick looked back up at her. "That other CSI, Greg, was willing to lie right to my face because you're his friend and would clearly do anything for you. Catherine came here and made me stay to talk to you and try and work this out because she cares about you much. And that cop, Brass, was shell-shocked when he saw you unconscious on the floor with a gash in your head."

Nick shook his head in confusion. "So what?" he asked.

"If you weren't the same person that I knew back then, they wouldn't be your friends. They wouldn't care about you as much as they do or want the best for you. I'm not the same exact person either, no one is after all this time."

The tears that had been building up in Nick's eyes were threatening to spill over. "I don't want to hurt you again," he whispered.

Sam genuinely smiled at him for the first time in a long time. "Then you won't," she replied with a slight shrug before slowly pulling him closer to her so that she could kiss him softly and effectively shut him up; this time without almost killing him.


	11. With Me Tonight

He couldn't tell you exactly why it took as long as it did, but when Nick finally and completely registered what was happening, he was so surprised and confused that his brain stopped all movement from being possible. He pulled back slowly, breaking the kiss with Sam and allowed himself to see the events unfolding around him. To his surprise, they were now in his bedroom, on his bed, Sam lying underneath him and looking up at him silently. As he stared into her eyes, he saw that they were both missing their shirts; in addition, Sam's jeans had also been removed and apparently Nick's were soon to follow as Sam had already undone his belt, unzipped them and was in the process of pushing them down over his black boxers. When he stopped kissing her, Sam stopped moving her hands and instead rested them on his hips where his skin ended and the soft cotton of his boxers began.

"What's wrong?" Sam whispered.

Nick shook his head slowly. "You don't want to do this," he said, his confusion at the situation and his lingering concussion making his head spin and feel light. "I don't want to take advantage of you, you're going to regret this."

"Do you not want to do this?" Sam asked, having a hard time reading his eyes in the dark of the bedroom.

Nick laughed slightly. "Are you kidding me? Of course I do, but this isn't about me. I don't want to hurt you again, I can't hurt you again."

"This isn't about me either," Sam replied. "This is about us. And right now, everything that happened in the past doesn't matter. We can't change it and we talked about what needed to be talked about. We said what we needed to say and that's all we can do about that. What matters is what we do about it now. If you don't want to do anything about it, and don't want to see what we can get out of this, then I'll leave you alone but-"

Before she could continue, Nick silenced her with a deep and passionate kiss. He put one hand on the side of her face and caressed her cheek gently while he ran his other hand up her thigh and rested it on her lean hip. Sam took the hint and continued to push his jeans down until he could kick them off and let them fall silently to the floor. She ran her hands over his strong back before wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as possible to her own warm body. Nick broke the kiss again to kiss the sensitive spot behind Sam's left ear that he knew all too well brought a smile to her lips no matter what.

"I love you," he said softly in her ear, the warmth of his breath tickling her and sending goosebumps all over her skin.

She moved her head and kissed him soundly again before moving away just far enough to reply, "I love you too."

* * *

><p>Nick opted out of opening his eyes for as long as possible due to the throbbing in his head. His headaches still hadn't gone away completely, and wouldn't for a few more days. He was awake, but refused to open his eyes and accept the pain in his head and apparent freezing temperatures around him. When he finally did open his eyes, he realized that the reason for this was the fact that he was only wearing his boxers and that all of the blankets were balled up in a heap to his left. He couldn't help but smile at the familiar feeling of waking up with no blankets due to the fact that Sam had stolen all of them. His smile faltered, however, when he noticed that Sam wasn't amongst the mess of blankets on the bed next to him.<p>

Nick craned his neck to the side and looked over the bed to see that only his clothes from the night before were still on the floor; Sam's were nowhere to be found. The ache in his head got worse and instead of getting up and facing yet another defeat, he opted to lay back down and close his eyes again to try and put off more heartache. A few minutes later, just as he was about to drift back to sleep, he was startled awake by someone entering the room. He sat up straight as if he were attached to a spring and was surprised to see Sam standing at the foot of the bed.

Confused by Nick's amazement at her being there, Sam asked, "Are you okay?" When Nick didn't reply, she then asked "Do you not remember last night?"

Nick shook his head. "No, I do," he answered quietly.

Sam nodded once. "You thought that I had left."

Nick looked down at his hands in his lap. "I wouldn't have blamed you," he answered weakly.

Sam crawled onto the bed and moved over to sit next to him. She grabbed his hand and kissed him sweetly on the side of his head which caused his hurt puppy dog face to change to a small smile. "I would never do that to you," she said.

"I guess it's just me that leaves," he replied.

Sam shook her head at him. "You have to get over what you did to me," she said, even thought it sounded very odd. "I moved past what you did. I forgave you, whether you believe me or not. Last night wouldn't have happened if I didn't forgive you, if I didn't love you. But if you can't get past what you did to me, then you can't move forward."

Nick looked up at her and nodded silently. "I'm sorry," he said. "It was just hard to believe this is real I guess. I never thought we would ever get to this point, but I'm glad we did."

Sam smiled. "I am too," she said before hopping off of the bed. "Do you mind if I take a quick shower?" she asked.

"Go right ahead," Nick replied. "Grab some of my clothes if you want."

"I just ran down to the corner store and grabbed some stuff for you to eat," she said, turning towards Nick's dresser and opening a drawer that she someone knew would have t-shirts in it. "You haven't eaten in a few days and are pretty weak so you have to eat something soon or-" Sam stopped short upon finding something in Nick's drawer.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sensing the sudden tension coming over the room.

Sam nervously ran her hands through her hair. "Are you seeing anybody?" she asked, turning quickly to face Nick.

"No," he answered immediately and truthfully. "I'm not dating anyone and haven't even slept with anyone in a while, and there was never anyone here that I would describe as someone I was actually seeing."

"Then who is this for?" Sam asked as she tossed Nick a small black velvet box that contained a diamond engagement ring.

Nick made no attempt to catch the box. He allowed it to hit him in the leg and fall to the bed beside him. He sighed heavily as he looked down at the open box. "I got it for you," he answered as he looked back up at her.

That was not at all the answer she had been expecting. "When?" the one word question the only thing she could utter at the moment.

"About a month before you told me you were pregnant. I got it and had this whole elaborate proposal plan worked out, and then I got nervous that you would think it was stupid so I kept waiting and kept changing how I wanted to do it because I wanted it to be perfect," he rambled, trying to explain it to her. "I kept convincing myself I was going to mess it up or that whatever I had planned wasn't good enough until finally I had put it off long enough to the day you told me you were pregnant."

"And then you changed your mind?" Sam asked weakly.

Nick shook his head. "No. I was just afraid that if I asked you after that you were going to think that it was just because you were pregnant, not because I'm an idiot and didn't have the balls to just ask you. I wanted the timing to be right, and then you were pregnant and I didn't know what I should do and while I was trying to figure it out...everything went wrong."

Sam sat down on the edge of the bed heavily. "I had no idea," she said.

Nick smiled slightly. "That was the idea. I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted it to be perfect, but instead I just let it all fall apart." Sam didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. When he was met with only silence, Nick added "Open the box that's in there where you found the ring," he instructed.

Still sitting on the bed, Sam reached into the drawer and pulled out a battered black cigar box. She set it on her lap before turning and looking at Nick. "What is it?" she asked.

"Just open it."

Sam flipped the cover of the box open to reveal a stack of folded papers inside. She immediately recognized them as being letters, and around the stack was everything from movie ticket stubs to wine labels. The top letter was apparently the most recent, as it had the date _September 13, 2010 _scrawled across the front in Nick's unmistakably messy handwriting.

"What are these?" Sam asked, despite recognizing the date immediately as their anniversary.

"I wrote you two letters every year," Nick replied. "One on your birthday, and one on our anniversary. Two letters every year for fourteen years. And every year I said that I was going to send them all to you, and obviously I never did. But I told Jess that if anything were to ever happen to me to make sure that you got this box."

Sam looked at him in amazement as the tears in her eyes fell down her cheeks. "What's the rest of this?" she asked, looking through the other items in the box.

"Things that reminded me of you," he replied. "An advertisement in a magazine or a newspaper cartoon. Most of it are movie tickets of movies that I went to see by myself because they were movies I knew I would have wanted to see with you."

Sam picked up one of the movie tickets and saw that it had been for "Crazy Stupid Love" which had only come out a few weeks ago. More tears spilled from her eyes as she said, "I went and saw this by myself too. I thought of you the whole time."

Nick moved over across the bed so he was sitting next to her on the edge. "I thought about you every day, pretty much all day, and I kept these things to prove it to you if one day I died or if I ever got the chance to see you again because you deserve to know how unbelievably amazing you are."

Sam put the ticket back in the box before closing the lid and putting it on the top of the dresser. "I don't know what to say Nick."

Nick smiled. "You don't have to say anything," he replied. Sam leaned forward and kissed him, and when they broke apart Nick continued. "I love you Sam, more than anything. But you can do so much better than me."

Sam shook her head. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, knowing where this was headed.

"Because it's true," Nick replied. "I work nights. I have a crazy, dangerous job. I work on these horrible crimes and have trouble sleeping because half the time I can't stop thinking about these victims and the other half I'm too scared to sleep because I have these awful nightmares. I've spent the last fourteen years hating who I am and wanting nothing more than to run away from myself."

"I don't care," Sam replied defiantly. "You have a crazy job and work all the time. You are also the most stubborn person I have ever met and absolutely refuse to ever give up on anything or let something go. You will never stop working on something until you figure it out and you devote so much time and effort to everyone else around you that you completely neglect yourself and the things that you need and want. You smoke, you drink, you swear, and you over analyze everything. But I still love you. I love you because you listen to every little thing that I have ever said and remember all the stupid little things that matter to me. You are the most loyal and honest person I have ever met. You never take anything for granted and you always let the people you care about know that you care about them. You're the only man I've ever loved."

Nick's own tears were now falling from his dark eyes. "You've always scared me ya know," he said, catching Sam off guard. "Because I've known, since the minute I saw you, that you were the only one I would ever want to be with for the rest of my life. And that scared me because I knew it was never going to be better than you and I knew I would never be happy without you."

Sam smiled at him adoringly. "You don't have to be without me, not anymore," she said. "If this is what you want-"

Nick once again stopped her mid-sentence with another breathtaking kiss. Nothing else needed to be said or done at the moment, so nothing was. The past couldn't be changed, and the future could wait while they finally enjoyed the present that included each other.

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><p>Thanks for reading, the next and final chapter will be up by the end of the week!<p> 


	12. New Again

Sam lay with her head on Nick's bare chest, letting the gentle rise and fall caused by his breathing even deepen her relaxation at that point. She was utterly exhausted, but content to just be lying there with Nick, not sleeping but also not doing anything else at all. It was actually the first time that they were just lying there, not doing anything. All the other times they had been around each other as of late they had been fighting, and when that ceased, their fighting was replaced with intoxicating sex that proved that distance really does make the heart grow fonder. Sam couldn't help but smile at how quickly her life had changed; at first, she had thought seeing Nick again was a bad thing but now she knew it was for the best. She had been afraid he had lost all feelings for her and that they would never have anything ever again. Only time would tell exactly what they were going to have with each other, but right there and then things couldn't get much better.

"I can hear you thinking," Nick said, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen over them for the last twenty minutes.

Sam smiled wider as he lazily played with her hair. "Oh yeah?"

"Yepp," Nick replied. "You're thinking about how badly you want to make me some pancakes. And coffee. And eggs and bacon."

Sam couldn't contain her laughter. "You might wanna work on your mind reading skills pal," she said. "That's probably the farthest thing from my mind right now."

Nick wrapped his arms around her tightly and kissed the top of her head. "Then you're gonna have to help me out here," he said.

Sam sighed and snuggled deeper into his embrace. "I was just thinking that I've envisioned seeing you again a million times, and I never thought it was going to end up going this well. Obviously it was hell at first, but it was worth it to get to here, don't you think?" she asked as she adjusted sso she had her head on the pillow next to his and could look at him.

Nick nodded with a smile. "This was definitely worth the concussion," he said.

"I wish that part didn't have to have happened," she said, still feeling guilty.

"I'm fine," he replied. "Plus, it made you in to stay and take care of me, which lead to this in general, so all in all everything was worth it. I just wish you didn't have to have gone through as much as you did to finally get back to what you deserved and what you wanted."

"What do you want?" she asked, cuddling closer to him by putting her hand on his leg.

"You," Nick replied.

Sam smiled. "I mean in general, about everything, like in life."

"You," Nick repeated. "I'm thoroughly convinced that I could have no job, no house, no car, and no money, but if I had you, I would still be completely happy. You're the only thing that I want because you're the only thing that I absolutely need to be happy."

"Well, you're not going to have me if you don't have a job, house, car or money," she joked, eliciting another smile from him. "I just don't want to barge back into your life and make you feel like I'm trying to change you or anything about you."

Nick shook his head. "I would never feel that way. I want you in my life to the fullest extent. My life improves by having you in it; you're the one that had a relationship and everything outside of here. I'm changing you more than you're changing me, and if you don't want that then-"

"Do you know why I was dating Jeff for so long?" Sam asked abruptly, cutting him off. Surprised by her odd question, Nick merely shook his head at her in response. "He had Klinefelter's syndrome."

"I don't know what that is," he said.

"It means that he's been sterile since birth," she answered. "So obviously he can't have kids. I dated him for so long because he was a really nice guy, successful, and was an absolute sweet heart, but at the same time knew that it would only ever be just dating. As messed up as it sounds, I was comforted by the fact that I would never have a family with him because I knew I wouldn't want to because he wasn't you. I always found myself comparing him to you and it wasn't fair to him, that's why I ended it. He had no idea, I never told him about you at all. I hated doing it, but I always wished that he was more like you until I eventually felt so guilty and had to end it because I knew the future I wanted wasn't the future I could have with him."

Nick wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. "I'm sorry," he said. "It is my fault," he added, anticipating her reply. "You should have had all of that for the last fourteen years, and you had it all taken away from you because of me."

Sam shook her head. "If, for argument's sake, that's true, then I don't care because I'm getting it all back."

"Are you sure?" Nick asked softly.

"This is going to be really hard," Sam replied honestly. "We're going to have to keep working at this every day but it's going to be worth it because we both know how perfect it can get. We've been through tough times together, and we've gone through tougher times without each other. But this is what I want, to go through whatever else life has in store with you. Whatever happens to me in the future, I want it to be with you."

"Are you scared?" he asked.

"No," she responded. "I'm nervous and excited, but not scared. Are you?"

Nick shook his head. "The only thing you do is make me happy. I'll die before I let myself or anything else mess this up again."

Sam smiled and kissed him on the forehead. "Good, now how about those pancakes?"

She slid out of bed and threw on Nick's previously discarded boxers and his t-shirt before heading out into the kitchen to get breakfast started. She had just gotten the coffee started and was about to turn around to get going on the pancakes when she was stopped by Nick coming up from behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her backwards until she was flush against his chest.

"I love you," he said quietly in her ear, resting his chin on her shoulder.

Sam leaned back against him, resting her hands on his. "I love you too," she replied, unable to hold back a smile.

They remained standing together, disregarding their coffee and pancake plans. They both knew that things would never get back to the way things were fourteen years ago, but they were both okay with that because they knew that being together was always going to be better than being apart. It was going to be a lot of work and a lot of things still needed to happen, but it would all occur in good time when the timing was right. A lot of things had changed in those fourteen years, but the one thing that had remained the same and would always remain the same was their love for each other, and they both knew that that was enough to get them through anything life threw in front of them.

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><p>Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! =)<p> 


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